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THE MINER'S DREAM. 



ROUGHING 

IT 

BT 



MAM TWAIN, 

(SAMTJEL L. CLEMENS.) 



FULLY ILLUSTRATED BY EMINENT ARTISTS. 



(ISSUTO BT SUBSCRIPTION ONXT, AND NOT FOR 8ALR IN BOftK 8TORE8.) 
(M0EDINTS OF ANY STATE DE8IBI5TO A COPT SHOULD ADDRESS THX PUBLISHERS AS BBLOWj 



HARTFORD, CONN. : 

AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

1886. 



■A' 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by the 

AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



TO 
CALVIN H. HIGBIE, 

Of California, 

an Honest Man, a Genial Comrade, and a Steadfast Friend. 

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED 

By the Author, 

In Memory of the Curious Time 

When We Two 

WEBS MILLIONAIRES FOB TEN DAYS. 



PEEFATOET. 

This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pre- 
tentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record 
of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its object is 
rather to help the resting reader while away an idle hour 
than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science. 
Still, there is information in the volume; information con- 
cerning an interesting episode in the history of the Far West, 
about which no books have been written by persons who were 
on the ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time 
with their own eyes. I allude to the rise, growth and culmina- 
tion of the silver-mining fever in Nevada — a curious episode, 
in some respects ; the only one, of its peculiar kind, that has 
occurred in the land ; and the only one, indeed, that is likely 
to occur in it. 

Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of infor- 
mation in the book. I regret this very much ; but really it 
could not be helped : information appears to stew out of me 
naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. 
Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I 
could retain my facts ; but it cannot be. The more I calk up 
the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. 
Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the 
reader, not justification. 

THE AUTHOR. 




PAAB 

The Milks' Dream (Yvli Page,) Face Page Frontispiece. 

Exvioub Contemplations 20 

Innocent Dreams 21 

Light Traveling Order 23 

The " Allen " 23 

Inducements to Purchase 24 

The Facetious Driver 25 

Pleasing News 26 

The SniYNX 27 

Meditation 32 

On Business 33 

Author as Gulliver 33 

A Tough Statement 35 

Third Trip op the Unabridged 38 

A Powerful Glass 41 

An Heirloom 42 

Our Landlord 42 

Dignified Exile 43 

Drinking Slumgullion 44 

A Joke without Cream 45 

Pullman Car Dintng-Saloon 47 

Our Morning Ride 49 

PRAnuE Dogs 50 

A Cayote 51 

Showing Respect to Relatives 52 

The Conductor 55 

Teaching a Subordinate 57 

Jack and the Elderly Pllgrim 58 

Crossing the Platte 61 

I Began to Pray 62 

A New Departure 63 

Suspended Operations 65 

A Wonderful Lle . . 68 

Tad>piece 69 



vi Illustrations. 



35. Here He Comes 71 

36. Changing Horses 72 

37. Riding The Avalanche 78 

as. Imuax Country 76 

3i). A Proposed Fist Fight 81 

40. From Behind the Door 82 

41. Slade as an Executioner 84 

& An Unpleasant View 85 

43. Unappreciated Politeness 88 

44. Slade in Court 92 

45. A Wife's Lamentations 95 

46. The Concentrated Inhabitant 99 

47. The South Pass (Full Page,) Face Page 100 

4S. The Parted Streams 101 

49. It Spoiled the Melon 102 

50. Given Over to the Cayote and the Kaven „ 103 

51. "Don't Come Here" 104 

52. "Think I'M a Fool" 105 

53. The "Destroying Angel" 106 

54. Effects of "Valley Tan" 109 

55. One Crest 110 

56. The Other 110 

57. The Vagrant Ill 

58. Portrait of Heber Kimball 112 

59. Portrait oe Beigham Young 113 

60. The Contractors before the Ejng 116 

61. I was Touched 117 

62. The Endowment, tail-piece 118 

63. Favorite Wife and D. 4 120 

64. Needed Marking 121 

65. A Remarkable Resemblance 124 

66. The Family Bedstead 126 

67. The Miraculous Compass 131 

68. Three Sides to a Question 137 

69. Result of High Freights 138 

70. A Shriveled Quarter 339 

71. An Object of Pity 140 

72. Tail-Piece 141 

73. Tail-Piece 145 

74. Goshott Indians hanging around Stations 147 

75. The Drive for Life 148 

76. Greeley's Ride 150 

77. Bottling an Anecdote 154 

78. Tail-Piece 156 

79- Contemplation 158 

80. The Washoe Zephyr 159 

81. The Governor's House „ 161 

82. Dark Disclosures 162 

83. The Irish Brigade 163 

34. Recreation 164 

85. The Tarantula 165 

86. Light thrown on the Subject 166 

&i. I Steered 169 

88. Thb Invalid 170 

19- The Restored , 171 



Illustrations. yii 

JO. Our House 17* 

91. At Business 174 

92. Fight at Lake Tahoe (Full, JTage.) Face Page 176 

93. "totj might think him an american house * 179 

94. Unexpected Elevation 180 

95. Universally Unsettled 181 

96. Riding the Plug 182 

97. Wanted Exercise 183 

98. Borrowing made easy 186 

99. Free Rides : 188 

100. Satisfactory Vouchers 190 

101. Needs Praying for 191 

102. Map of Toll Roads 192 

103. Unloading Silver Bricks 194 

104. View in Humboldt Mountains 196 

105. Going to Humboldt 199 

106. Ballou's Bedfellow 201 

107. Pleasures of Camping Out 202 

108. The Secret Search 205 

109. " Cast your Eye on that " 207 

110. " We've got it" 210 

111. Incipient Million aii-.es 212 

112. Rocks— Tail-Piece 214 

113. "Do You see it?" 216 

114. Farewell Sweet River 218 

115. The Rescue 219 

116. "Mr. Arkansas" 222 

117. An Armed Ally 225 

118. Crossing the Flood 227 

119. Advance in a Circle 229 

120. The Songster 230 

121. The Foxes have Holes— Tail-Piece 231 

122. A Flat Failure 233 

123. The Last Match 234 

1*4 Discarded Vices 236 

125. Flames— Tail-Piece 237 

126. Camping in the Snow (Full Page,) Face Page 238 

127. It was thus we met 240 

128. Taking Possession 242 

129. A Great Effort 244 

130. Rearranging and Shifting 246 

131. We left Lamented 249 

132. Picture of Townsend's Tunnel 250 

133. Quartz Mill 253 

134. Another Process of Amalgamation 254 

135. First Quartz Mill in Nevada 256 

136. A Slice of Rich Ore 257 

137. The Saved Brother 260 

138. On a Secret Expedition 263 

139. Lake Mono (Full Page,) Face Page 265 

140. Rather Soapy 26< 

141. A Bark under Full Sail 266 

142. A Model Boarding House 266 

143. Life amid Death 271 

144. A Jump foe Life 378 



viii Illustrations. 

145. "Stove Heap gone" 275 

146. Interviewing the " Wide "West " 279 

147. Worth a Million 280 

143. Millionaires Laying Plans 282 

149. Dangerously Sick 287 

150. Worth Nothing „ 288 

151. The Compromise 290 

152. One of my Failures 293 

153. Target Shooting 294 

154. As City Editor 595 

155. The Entire Market 296 

156. A Friend Indeed 297 

157. Union— Tail-Piece 298 

15S. An Educational Report 301 

159. No Particular Hurry 302 

160. Birds Eye View of Virginia City and Mt. Davidson 304 

161. ANEW Mine 307 

162. Try a Few 309 

163. Portrait of Mr. Stewart 310 

164. Selling a Mine 311 

165. Couldn't Wait 315 

166. The Great " Flour Sack " Procession (Full Page,) Face Page 317 

167. Tail-Piece 319 

168. A Nabob 321 

169. Magnificence and Misery 32S 

170. A Friendly Driver 326 

171. Astonishes the Natives 327 

172. Col. Jack Weakens 82* 

173. ScottyBriggs and the Minister 3Si 

174. Regulating Matters 335 

175. Didn't Shook his Mother 337 

176. ScottyasS. S. Teacher 338 

177. The Man who had Killed his Dozen 840 

178. The Unprejudiced Jury , 342 

179. A Desperado giving Reference 344 

180. Satisfying a Foe 346 

181. Tail-Piece 351 

382. Giving Information 353 

183. A Walking Battery 355 

184. Overhauling his Manifest 358 

185. Ship— Tail-Piece 359 

186. The Heroes and Heroines of the Story . 361 

187. Dissolute Author 362 

188. There sat the Lawyer 365 

189. Jonah Outdone 367 

190. DOLLINGER 370 

191. Low Bridge 371 

192. Shortening Sail 372 

193. Lightening Ship 373 

194. The Marvellous Rescue 375 

195. Silver Bricks 377 

196. Timber Supports 379 

197. From Gallery to Gallery 389 

198. Jim Blaine 384 

199. Hubbah fob Nixon • 388 



Illustrations. ix 



200. Miss Wagner 888 

201. Waiting fob a Customer 387 

202. Was to be There 388 

203. The Monument 889 

204. WnEBE is the Ram ?— Tail-Piece 390 

205. Chinese "Wash Bill 392 

206. Imitation 393 

207. Chinese Lotteby 396 

208. Chinese Mebchant at Home— Tail Piece 397 

209. An Old Fbtend 399 

210. Fabewell and Accident 403 

211. "Gimme a Cigar" 404 

212. The Hebald of Glad News 406 

213. Flag— Tail-Piece 407 

214. ANew England Scene 409 

215. A Vabiable Climate 410 

216. Sacbamento and Thbee Houbs Away 418 

217. "Fetch Heb Out" 416 

218. "Well if it aint a Child" 417 

219. A Genuine Live Woman 418 

220. The Gbace of a Kangaboo 420 

221. Dbeams Dissipated 421 

222. The "OneHoese Shay" Outdone 422 

223. Hard on the Innocents 423 

224. Dby Bones Shaken 423 

225. " On ! What shall I do ! " 424 

226. "Get out youb Towel my Deab" 425 

227. "We Will Omit the Benediction " 426 

228. Slinking 429 

229. A Pbize 431 

230. A Look in at the Window 432 

231. " Do It Stbangee * 433 

232. The Old Collegiate 436 

233. Stbiking a Pocket 438 

234. Tom Quartz 440 

235. An Advantage Taken 441 

236. Aftek an Excubsion 442 

237. The TnBEE Captains 445 

238. The Old Admibal 448 

239. The Desebted Field 449 

240. Williams 453 

241. Scene on the Sandwich Islands 455 

242. Fashionable Attibe 456 

243. A Bite 457 

244. Reconnoitebing 458 

245. Eating Tamabinds 458 

246. Looking fob Mischief 461 

247. A Family Likeness 468 

248. Sit Down to Listen 467 

249. "My Bbotheb, We Twins" 469 

250. Exteaobdinaey Capebs 470 

251. A Load of Hay 47i 

252. Marching Through Georgia— Tail-Piece 472 

253. Sandwich Island Giels 474 

254. Original Ham Sandwich 475 



x Illustrations. 



OO, 



I Kissed Him fob His Mother" 478 

256. an Outsider— Tail-Piece 4TO 

257. Ax Enemy's Prayer 482 

238, Visiting the Missionaries 484 

250. Full Church Dkess 485 

260. Playing Empire 486 

261. Royalty and its Satellites 488 

262. A IIiGH Private— Tail-Piece 489 

263. A Modern Funeral 492 

264. Former Fukebal Orgies 497 

265. A Passenger 499 

266. Moonlight on the Water 501 

267. Going into the Mountains (Full Page,) Face Page 502 

268. Evening— Tail-Piece 503 

269. The Demented 505 

270. Discussing Turnips 507 

271. Greeley's Letter 509 

272. Kealakekua Bay and Cook's Monument 514 

273. The Ghostly Builders 518 

274. On Guard 519 

275. Breaking the Tabu 521 

276. Surf Bathing 525 

277. Surf Bathing a Failure 526 

278. City of Refuge 527 

279. The Queen's Kock : 529 

280. Tail-Piece 531 

281. The Pillar of Fire 533 

282. The Crater 535 

283. Broke Through 539 

284. Fire Fountains 540 

285. Lava Stream 542 

2S& A Tidal Wave 543 

287. Trip on the Milky "Way 545 

288. A View in the Iao Valley (Full Page,) Face Page 547 

289. Magnificent Sport 549 

290. Eleven Miles to See 553 

291. Chased by a Storm 554 

292. Leaving Work 555 

293. Tail-Piece 557 

294. Our Amusements 559 

295. Severe Case of Stage Feight 561 

296. My Three Parquette Allies 562 

297. Sawyer in the Circle 562 

298. A Predicament 567 

299. The Best of the Joke 569 

300. THB E2TD I7fi 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 



Hy Brother appointed Secretary of Nevada — I Envy His Prospective 
Adventures — Am Appointed Private Secretary Under Him — My 
Contentment Complete — Packed in One Hour — Dreams and Visions 
— On the Missouri River — A Bully Boat 19 

CHAPTER II. 

Arrive at St. Joseph — Only Twenty-five Pounds Baggage Allowed — 
Farewell to Kid Gloves and Dress Coats — Armed to the Teeth — 
The "Allen" — A Cheerful Weapon — Persuaded to Buy a Mule — 
Schedule of Luxuries — We Leave the " States " — " Our Coach " 
— Mails for the Indians — Between a Wink and an Earthquake — A 
Modern Sphynx and How She Entertained Us — A Sociable Heifer. 23 

CHAPTER III. 

" The Thoroughbrace is Broke" — Mails Delivered Properly — Sleeping 
Under Difficulties — A Jackass Rabbit Meditating, and on Business 
— A Modern Gulliver — Sage-brush — Overcoats as an Article of Diet 
— Sad Fate of a Camel — Warning to Experimenters 29 

CHAPTER IV. 

Making Our Bed — Assaults by the Unabridged — At a Station — Our 
Driver a Great and Shining Dignitary — Strange Place for a Front- 
yard — Accommodations — Double Portraits — An Heirloom — Our 
Worthy Landlord — " Fixings and Tilings " — An Exile — Slumgul- 
lion — A Well Furnished Table — The Landlord Astonished — Table 
Etiquette — Wild Mexican Mules — Stage-coaching and Railroading. 37 

CHAPTER V. 

New Acquaintances — The Cayote — A Dog's Experiences — A Disgusted 
Dog — The Relatives of the Cayote — Meals Taken Away from Home 48 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Division Superintendent — The Conductor — The Driver — One Hun- 
dred and Fifty Miles' Drive Without Sleep — Teaching a Subor- 
dinate — Our Old Friend Jack and a Pilgrim — Ben Holliday Com- 
pared to Moses 54 

CHAPTER VII. 

tVverland City — Crossing the Platte — Bemis's Buffalo Hunt — Assault 
by a Buffalo — Bemis's Horse Goes Crazy — An Impromptu Circus 
— A New Departure — Bemis Finds Refuge in a Tree — Escapes 
Finally by a Wonderful Method 60 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Pony Express — Fifty Miles Without Stopping — " Here he Comes " 

— Alkali Water — Riding an Avalanche — Indian Massacre 70 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. PAGB 

Among the Indians — An Unfair Advantage — Laying on our Arms — A 
Midnight Murder — Wrath of Outlaws — A Dangerous, yet Valuable 
Citizen 75 

CHAPTER X. 

History of Slade — A Proposed Fist-fight — Encounter with Jules — 
Paradise of Outlaws — Slade as Superintendent — As Executioner — 
A Doomed Whisky Seller — A Prisoner — A Wife's Bravery — An 
Ancient Enemy Captured — Enjoying a Luxury — Hob-nobbing with 
Slade — Too Polite — A Happy Escape 80 

CHAPTER XI. 

Slade in Montana — "On a Spree" — In Court — Attack, on a Judge- 
Arrest by the Vigilantes — Turn out of the Miners — Execution of 
Slade — Lamentations of His Wife — Was Slade a Coward ? 90 

CHAPTER XII. 

A Mormon Emigrant Train — The Heart of the Rocky Mountains — 
Pure Saleratus — A Natural Ice-House — An Entire Inhabitant — In 
Sight of " Eternal Snow " — The South Pass — The Parting Streams 
— An Unreliable Letter Carrier — Meeting of Old Friends — A Spoiled. 
Watermelon — Down the Mountain — A Scene of Desolation — Lost 
in the Dark — Unnecessary Advice — U. S. Troops and Indians — Sub- 
lime Spectacle — Another Delusion Dispelled — Among the Angels. . 9? 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Mormons and Gentiles — Exhilarating Drink, and its Effect on Bemis — 
Salt Lake City — A Great Contrast — A Mormon Vagrant — Talk with 
a Saint — A Visit to the " King " — A Happy Simile 108 

CHAPTER XlV. 

Mormon Contractors — How Mr. Street Astonished Them — The Case 
Before Brigham Young, and How he Disposed of it — Polygamy 
Viewed from a New Position 114 

CHAPTER XV. 

A Gentile Den — Polygamy Discussed — Favorite Wife and D. 4 — 
Hennery for Retired Wives — Children Need Marking — Cost of a 
Gift to No. 6 — A Penny- whistle Gift and its Effects — Fathering the 
Foundlings — It Resembled Him — The Family Bedstead 119 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Mormon Bible — Proofs of its Divinity — Plagiarism of its Authors 

— Story of Nephi — Wonderful Battle — Kilkenny Cats Outdone 127 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Three Sides to all Questions — Everything " A Quarter " — Shriveled Up 
— Emigrants and White Shirts at a Discount — " Forty-Niners " — 
Above Par — Real Happiness 136 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Alkali Desert — Romance of Crossing Dispelled — Alkali Dust— Effect on 
the Mules — Universal Thanksgiving 143 



CONTENTS. Xin 



CHAPTER XIX. pace 

rhe Digger Indians Compared with the Bushmen of Africa — Food, 
Life and Characteristics — Cowardly Attack on a Stage Coach — A 
Brave Driver — The Noble Red Man 146 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Great American Desert — Forty Miles on Bones — Lakes Without 
Outlets — Greely's Remarkable Ride — Hank Monk, the Renowned 
Driver — Fatal Effects of " Corking " a Story — Bald-Headed Anec- 
dote 150 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Alkali Dust — Desolation and Contemplation — Carson City — Our Journey 
Ended — We are Introduced to Several Citizens — A Strange Rebuke 
— A Washoe Zephyr at Play — Its Office Hours — Governor's Palace — 
Government Offices— Our French Landlady Bridget O'Flannigan — 
Shadow Secrets — Cause for a Disturbance at Once — The Irish Bri- 
gade — Mrs. O'Flannigan's Boarders — The Surveying Expedition — 
Escape of the Tarantulas 15? 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The Son of a Nabob — Start for Lake Tahoe — Splendor of the Views — 
Trip on the Lake — Camping Out — Rein vigo rating Climate — Clear- 
ing a Tract of Land — Securing a Title — Outhouse and Fences 168 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

A Happy Life — Lake Tahoe and its Moods — Transparency of the Waters 
— A Catastrophe — Fire ! Fire ! — A Magnificent Spectacle — Homeless 
Again — We take to the Lake — A Storm — Return to Carson 173 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Resolve to Buy a Horse — Horsemanship in Carson — A Temptation — 
Advice Given Me Freely — I Buy the Mexican Plug — My First Ride 
— A Good Bucker — I Loan the Plug — Experience of Borrowers — At- 
tempts to Sell — Expense of the Experiment — A Stranger Taken In. 178 

CHAPTER XXV. 

The Mormons in Nevada — How to Persuade a Loan from Them — Early 
History of the Territory — Silver Mines Discovered — The New Terri- 
torial Government — A Foreign One and a Poor One — Its Funny 
Struggles for Existence — No Credit, no Cash — Old Abe Currey Sus- 
tains it and its Officers — Instructions and Vouchers — An Indian's 
Endorsement— Toll-Gates 185 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Silver Fever— State of the Market— Silver Bricks— Tales Told- 

Offforthe Humboldt Mines 1»3 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Our manner of going — Incidents of the Trip — A Warm but Too Familiar 
a Bedfellow — Mr. Ballou Objects — Sunshine amid Clouds — Safely 
Arrived 1 98 



xiv Contents. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Arrive tit the Mountains — Building Our Cabin — My First Prospecting Tour — 
Mv First Gold Mine — Pockets Filled With Treasures — Filtering the News 
to* My Companions— The Bubble Pricked— All Not Gold That Glitters. . . 20$ 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Out Prospecting — A Silver Mine At Last — Making a Fortune With Sledge and 

Drill — A Hard Road to Travel — We Own in Claims — A Rocky Country . 211 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Disinterested Friends — How "Feet" Were Sold — We Quit Tunnelling— A Trip 
to Esmeralda — My Companions — An Indian Prophesy — A Flood — Our 
Quarters During It 215 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Guests at "Honey Lake Smith's "—" Bully Old Arkansas "—" Our Land- 
lord "—Determined to Fight— The Landlord's Wife— The Bully Con- 
quered by Her — Another Start — Crossing the Carson — A Narrow Escape 
— Following Our Own Track — A New Guide — Lost in the Snow 221 

CHAPTER XXXn. 

Desperate Situation — Attempts to Make a Fire — Our Horses leave us — We 
Find Matches — One, Two, Three and the Last — No Fire — Death Seems 
Inevitable — We Mourn Over Our Evil Lives — Discarded Vices — We For- 
give Each Other — An Affectionate Farewell — The Sleep of Oblivion. . . 232 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Return of Consciousness — Ridiculous Developments — A Station House — Bit- 
ter Feelings — Fruits of Repentance — Resurrected Vices 238 

CHAPTER XXXTV. 

About Carson — General Buncombe — Hyde vs. Morgan — How Hyde Lost His 
Ranch — The Great Landslide Case — The Trial — General Buncombe in 
Court — A Wonderful Decision — A Serious Afterthought 241 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

A New Travelling Companion — All Full and No Accommodations — How Cap- 
tain Nye found Room — and Caused Our Leaving to be Lamented — The 
Uses of Tunnelling — A Notable Example — We Go into the " Claim " Bus- 
iness and Fail — At the Bottom 248 

CHAPTER XXXVL 

A Quartz Mill — Amalgamation — " Screening Tailings " — First Quartz Mill in 

Nevada — Fire Assay — A Smart Assayer — I stake for an advance 252 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

The Whiteman Cement Mine — Story of its Discovery — A Secret Expedition 
— A Nocturnal Adventure — A Distressing Position — A Failure and a 
Week's Holiday 259 

CHAPTER XXXVni. 

Mono Lake — Shampooing Made Easy — Thoughtless Act of Our Dog and the 
Results — Lye Water — Curiosities of the Lake — Free Hotel — Some Funny 
Incidents a Little Overdrawn 265 



Contents. xr 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Visit to the Islands in Lake Mono — Ashes and Desolation — Life Amid Death 
Our Boat Adrift — A Jump For Life — A Storm On the Lake — A Mass of 
Soap Suds — Geological Curiosities — A Week On the Sierras — A Narrow 
Escape From a Funny Explosion — " Stove Heap Gone " 270 

CHAPTER XL. 

The "Wide West" Mine— It is " Interviewed " by Higbie— A Blind Lead- 
Worth a Million — We are Rich At Last — Plans for the Future 27Y 

CHAPTER XLL 

A Rheumatic Patient — Day Dreams — An Unfortunate Stumble — I Leave Sud- 
denly — Another Patient — Higbie in the Cabin — Our Balloon Bursted — 
Worth Nothing — Regrets and Explanations — Our Third Partner 285 

CHAPTER XLIL 

What to do Next '—Obstacles I Had Met With— "Jack of All Trades"— 

Mining Again — Target Shooting — I Turn City Editor — I Succeed Finely 292 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

My Friend Boggs — The School Report — Boggs Pays Me An Old Debt — Virgin- 
ia City 299 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

Flush Times — Plenty of Stock — Editorial Puffing — Stocks Given Me — Salting 

Mines — A Tragedian In a New Role 306 

CHAPTER XLV. 

Flush Times Continue — Sanitary Commission Fund — Wild Enthusiasm of the 
People — Would not wait to Contribute — The Sanitary Flour Sack — It 
is Carried to Gold Hill and Dayton — Final Reception in Virginia — Results 
of the Sale— A Grand Total 315 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

The Nabobs of Those Days — John Smith as a Traveler — Sudden Wealth — A 
Sixty-Thousand-Dollar Horse — A Smart Telegraph Operator — A Nabob 
in New York City — Charters an Omnibus — " Walk in, It's All Free "-^ 
"You Can't Pay a Cent "—"Hold On, Driver, I Weaken" — Sociability 
of New Yorkers" 320 

CHAPTER XL VII. 

Buck Fanshaw's Death — The Cause Thereof— Preparations for His Burial — 
Scotty Briggs the Committee Man— He Visits the Minister— Scotty Can't 
Play His Hand— The Minister Gets Mixed— Both Begin to See— " All 
Down Again But Nine"— Buck Fanshaw as a Citizen— How To "Shook Your 
Mother " — The Funeral— Scotty Briggs as a Sunday School Teacher. . . . 329 

CHAPTER XLVm. 

The First Twenty-Six Graves in Nevada — The Prominent Men of the County 

The Man Who Had Killed His Dozen — Trial by Jury — Specimen Jurors— 
A Private Grave Yard — The Desperadoes — Who They Killed — Waking up 
the Weary Passenger — Satisfaction Without Fighting 899 



xvi Contents. 

CHAPTER XLIX 

Fatal Shooting Affrays— Robbery and Desperate Affray— A Specimen City OfiL 

cial— A Marked Man— A Street Fight— Punishment of Crime S4T 

CHAPTER L. 

Captain Ned Blakely — Bill Nookes Receives Desired Information— Killing of 
Blakely's Mate — A Walking Battery— Blakely Secures Nookes— Hang 
First and Be Tried Afterwards — Captain Blakely as a Chaplain — The' 
First Chapter of Genesis Read at a Hanging — Nookes Hung — Blakely's 
Regrets 352 

CHAPTER LI. 

The Weekly Occidental — A Ready Editor — A Novel — A Concentration of Tal- 
ent — The Heroes and the Heroines — The Dissolute Author Engaged — Ex- 
traordinary Havoc With the Novel — A Highly Romantic Chapter — The 
Lovers Separated — Jonah Out-done — A Lost Poem — The Aged Pilot Man 
— Storm On the Erie Canal — Dollinger the Pilot Man — Terrific Gale — 
Danger Increases — A Crisis A rived — Saved as if by a Miracle 360 

CHAPTER LII. 

Freights to California — Silver Bricks — Under Ground Mines — Timber Supports 

—A Visit to the Mines— The Caved Mines— Total of Shipments in 1863. 376 

CHAPTER LIII. 

Jim Blaine and his Grandfather's Ram — Filkin's Mistake — Old Miss Wagner 
and her Glass Eye — Jacobs, the Coffin Dealer — Waiting for a Customer — 
His Bargain With Old Robbins — Robbins Sues for Damage and Collects 
— A New Use for Missionaries — The Effect — His Uncle Lem. and the Use 
Providence Made of Him — Sad Fate of Wheeler — Devotion of His Wife — 
A Model Monument— What About the Ram ? 382 

CHAPTER LIV. 

Chinese in Virginia City— Washing Bills— Habit of Imitation— Chinese Immi- 
gration—A Visit to Chinatown— Messrs. Ah Sing, Hong Wo, See Yup, &c. 391 

CHAPTER LV. 

Tired of Virginia City— An Old Schoolmate — A Two Years' Loan— Acting 
as an Editor- — Almost Receive an Offer — An Accident — Three Drunken 
Anecdotes — Last Look at Mt. Davidson — A Beautiful Incident 398 

CHAPTER LVI. 

Off for San Francisco— Western and Eastern Landscapes— The Hottest place 

on Earth— Summer and Winter 408 

CHAPTER LVII. 

California — Novelty of Seeing a Woman — " Well if it ain't a Child !" — One 

Hundred and Fifty Dollars for a Kiss — Waiting for a turn 414 

CHAPTER LVIII. 

Life in San Francisco — Worthless Stocks — My First Earthquake — Reporto- 
rial Instincts — Effects of the Shocks — Incidents and Curiosities — Sabbath 
Breakers — The Lodger and the Chambermaid — A Sensible Fashion to 
Follow — Effects of the Earthquake on the Ministers 41? 



Contents. xvii 

CHAPTER LIX. 

Poor Again — Slinking as a Business — A Model Collector — Misery loves Com- 
pany — Comparing Notes for Comfort — A Streak of Luck — Finding a, 
Dime — Wealthy by Comparison — Two Sumptuous Dinners 428 

CHAPTER LX. 

An Old Friend — An Educated Miner — Pocket Mining — Freaks of Fortune. . . 435 

CHAPTER LXI. 

Dick Baker and his Cat — Tom Quartz's Peculiarities — On an Excursion — Ap- 
pearance On His Return — A Prejudiced Cat — Empty Pockets and a Ro- 
ving Life 439 

CHAPTER LXII. 

Bound for the Sandwich Islands— The Three Captains — The Old Admiral — His 
Daily Habits — His Well Fought Fields — An Unexpected Opponent — The 
Admiral Overpowered — The Victor Declared a Hero 443. 

CHAPTER LXIII. 

Arrival at the Islands — Honolulu — What I Saw There — Dress and Habits of 

the Inhabitants — The Animal Kingdom — Fruits and Delightful Effects. . 454 

CHAPTER LXIV. 

An Excursion — Captain Phillips and his Turn-Out — A Horseback Ride — A 
Vicious Animal — Nature and Art — Interesting Ruins — All Praise to the 
Missionaries 459 

CHAPTER LXV. 

Interesting Mementoes and Relics — An Old Legend of a Frightful Leap— An 
Appreciative Horse — Horse Jockeys and Their Brothers — A New Trick 
— A Hay Merchant — Good Country for Horse Lovers 464 

CHAPTER LXVL 

A Saturday Afternoon — Sandwich Island Girls on a Frolic — The Poi Merchant 
— Grand Gala Day — A Native Dance — Church Membership — Cats and 
Officials — An Overwhelming Discovery 47 J 

CHAPTER LXVII. 

The Legislature of the Island — What Its President Has Seen — Praying for an 
Enemy — Women's Rights — Romantic Fashions — Worship of the Shark — 
Desire for Dress — Full Dress — Not Paris Style — Playing Empire — Officials 
and Foreign Ambassadors — Overwhelming Magnificence 480 

CHAPTER LXVIII. 

A Royal Funeral— Order of Procession— Pomp and Ceremony — A Striking 

Contrast — A Sick Monarch— Human Sacrifices at His Death— Burial Orgies 400 

CHAPTER LXrX 

" Once more upon the Waters." — A Noisy Passenger — Several Silent Ones— 

A Moonlight Scene — Fruits and Plantations 498 



at 



xviii Contents. 

CHAPTER LXX. 

A Droll Character — Mrs. Beazely and Her Son — Meditations on Turnips — 
A Letter from Horace Greeley — An Indignant Rejoinder — The Letter 
Translated but too Late 50$ 

CHAPTER LXXI. 

Kealakekua Bay — Death of Captain Cook — His Monument — Its Construction 

— On Board the Schooner 512 

CHAPTER LXXII. 

Young Kanakas in New England — A Temple Built by Ghosts — Female Bath- 
ers—I Stood Guard — Women and Whiskey — A Fight for Religion — Arri- 
val of Missionaries 517 

CHAPTER LXXIII. 

Native Canoes — Surf Bathing — A Sanctuary — How Built — The Queen's Rock 

— Curiosities — Petrified Lava 524 

CHAPTER LXXIV. 

Visit to the Volcano — The Crater — Pillar of Fire — Magnificent Spectacle — A 

Lake of Fire 532 

CHAPTER LXXV. 

The North Lake — Fountains bf Fire — Streams of Burning Lava — Tidal Waves 538 

CHAPTER LXXVI. 

A Reminiscence — Another Horse Story — My Ride with the Retired Milk 
Horse — A Picnicing Excursion — Dead Volcano of Holeakala — Compar- 
ison with Vesuvius — An Inside View 544 

CHAPTER LXXVIL 

A Curious Character — A Series of Stories — Sad Fate of a Liar — Evidence of 

Insanity 551 

CHAPTER LXXVm. 

Return to San Francisco — Ship Amusements — Preparing for Lecturing — Val- 
uable Assistance Secured — My First Attempt — The Audience Carried — 
"All's Well that Ends Well." 558 

CHAPTER LXXIX. 

Highwaymen — A Predicament — A Huge Joke — Farewell to California — At 

Home Again — Great Changes. Moral 664 

APPENDIX. 

A.— Brief Sketch of Mormon History 572 

B, — The Mountain Meadows Massacre 576 

C. — Concerning a Frightful Assassination that was never Consummated .... 580 



OHAPTEE I. 

MY brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada 
Territory — an office of such majesty that it con- 
centrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, 
Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the 
Governor's absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a 
year and the title of " Mr. Secretary," gave to the great posi- 
tion an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and 
ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his distinction 
and his financial splendor, but particularly and especially the 
long, strange journey he was going to make, and the curious 
new world he was going to explore. He was going to travel ! 
I never had been away from home, and that word " travel " had 
a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds 
and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, 
and among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffa- 
loes and Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have 
all kinds of adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and 
have ever such a fine time, and write home and tell us all 
about it, and be a hero. And he would see the gold mines 
and the silver mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon 
when his work was done, and pick up two or three pailfuls of 
shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on the hillside. 
And by and by he would become very rich, and return home by 
sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and the 
ocean, and " the isthmus " as if it was nothing of any conse- 
quence to have seen those marvels face to lace. What I 
suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe. 
And so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime posi- 
tion of private secretary under him, it appeared to me that 



20 



GETTING READY. 



the heavens and the earth passed away, and the firmament 
was rolled together as a scroll ! I had nothing more to desire. 
My contentment was complete. At the end of an hour or 




ENVIOUS CONTEMPLATIONS. 

two I was ready for the journey. Not much packing up was 
necessary, because we were going in the overland stage from 
the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and passengers were only 
allowed a small quantity of baggage apiece. There was no 
Pacific railroad in those fine times of ten or twelve years ago — 
not a single rail of it. 

I only proposed to stay in Nevada three months — I had no 
thought of staying longer than that. I meant to see all I could 
that was new and strange, and then hurry home to business. I 
little thought that I would not see the end of that three-month 
pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long years ! 

I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars, 
and in due time, next day, we took shipping at the St. Louis 
wharf on board a steamboat bound up the Missouri River. 



HERMAPHRODITE STEAMER. 



21 



We were six days going from St. Louis to " St. Jo." — a 
trip that was so dull, and sleepy, and eventless that it has left 
no more impression on my memory than if its duration had 
been six minutes instead of that many days. No record is 
left in my mind, now, concerning it, but a confused jumble 
of savage-looking snags, which we deliberately walked' over 
with one wheel or the other ; and of reefs which we butted 
and butted, and then retired from and climbed over in some 
softer place ; and of sand-bars which we roosted on occasion- 
ally, and rested, and then got out our crutches and sparred over. 
In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Jo. by 
land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow — climbing 
over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously 



r^P i//m 




INNOCENT DREAMS. 



all day long. The captain said she was a " bully " boat, and all she 
wanted was more " shear" and a bigger wheel. I thought she 
wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity not to say so. 



CHAPTEE II. 

THE first thing we did on that glad evening that landed 
us at St. Joseph was to hunt up the stage-office, and pay 
a hundred and fifty dollars apiece for tickets per overland 
coach to Carson City, Nevada. 

The next morning, bright and early, we took a hasty break- 
fast, and hurried to the starting-place. Then an inconvenience 
presented itself which we had not properly appreciated before, 
namely, that one cannot make a heavy traveling trunk stand 
for twenty-five pounds of baggage — because it weighs a good 
deal more. But that was all we could take — twenty-five 
pounds each. So we had to snatch our trunks open, and 
make a selection in a good deal of a hurry. We put our 
lawful twenty-five pounds apiece all in one valise, and shipped 
the trunks back to St. Louis again. It was a sad parting, for 
now we had no swallow-tail coats and white kid gloves to wear 
at Pawnee receptions in the Rocky Mountains, and no stove- 
pipe hats nor patent-leather boots, nor anything else necessary 
to make life calm and peaceful. We were reduced to a war' 
footing. Each of us put on a rough, heavy suit of clothing, 
woolen army shirt and " stogy " boots included ; and into the 
valise we crowded a few white shirts, some under-clothing 
and such things. My brother, the Secretary, took along about 
four pounds of United States statutes and six pounds of 
Unabridged Dictionary; for we did not know — poor inno- 
cents — that such things could be bought in San Francisco on 
one day and received in Carson City the next. I was armed 



FORMIDABLE ARMAMENT 



23 




to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson's seven- 
shooter, which carried a ball like a homoeopathic pill, and it 
took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult. But I 
thought it was grand. It ap- 
peared to me to be a dangerous 
weapon. It only had one fault — 
you could not hit anything with 
it. One of our " conductors " 
practiced awhile on a cow with 
it, and as long as she stood still 
and behaved herself she was safe ; 
but as soon as she went to mov- 
ing about, and he got to shooting 
at other things, she came to grief. 
The Secretary had a small-sized 
Colt's revolver strapped around 
him for protection against the 
Indians, and to guard against 
accidents he carried it uncapped. 
Mr. George Bemis was dismally 

fonnidable. George Bemis was our fellow-traveler. We had 
never seen him before. He wore in his belt an old original 
"Allen " revolver, such as irreverent people called a " pepper- 
box." Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the 
pistol. As the trigger came back, the hammer would begin to 
rise and the barrel to turn over, 
and presently down would drop 
the hammer, and away would 
speed the ball. To aim along 
the turning barrel and hit the 
thing aimed at was a feat which 
was probably never done with 
an "Allen" in the world. But 
George's was a reliable weapon, 

nevertheless, because, as one of the stage-drivers afterward 
said, " If she didn't get what she went after, she would fetch 
something else." And so she did. She went after a deuce of 



LIGIIT TRAVELING ORDER. 



^^ 




THE "ALLEN.' 



u 



LUXURIES AND NECESSARIES. 



spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing 
about thirty yards to the left of it. Bemis did not want the 
mule ; but the owner came out with a double-barreled shot- 
gun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. It was a cheerful 




INDUCEMENTS TO PURCHASE. 



weapon — the "Allen." Sometimes all its six barrels would 
go oft" at once, and then there was no safe place in all the 
region round about, but behind it. 

We took two or three blankets for protection against frosty 
weather in the mountains. In the matter of luxuries we were 
modest — we took none along but some pipes and five pounds 
of smoking tobacco. We had two large canteens to carry 
water in, between stations on the Plains, and we also took with 
us a little shot-bag of silver coin for daily expenses in the way 
of breakfasts and dinners. 



OUR COACH 



25 



By eight o'clock everything was ready, and we were on the 
other side of the river. We jumped into the stage, the driver 
cracked his whip, and we bowled away and left " the States " 
behind us. It was a superb summer morning, and all the 
landscape was brilliant with sunshine. There was a freshness 
and breeziness, too, and an exhilarating sense of emancipation 
from all sorts of cares and responsibilities, that almost made 
us feel that the years we had spent in the close, hot city, toil- 
ing and slaving, had been wasted and thrown away. We 
were spinning along through Kansas, and in the course of an 
hour and a half we were fairly abroad on the great Plains. 
Just here the land was rolling — a grand sweep of regular 
elevations and depressions as far as the eye could reach — like 
the stately heave and swell of the ocean's bosom after a storm. 
And everywhere were cornfields, accenting with squares of 
deeper green, this limitless expanse of grassy land. But 
presently this sea upon dry ground was to lose its " rolling " 
character and stretch away for seven hundred miles as level as 
a floor ! 

Our coach was a great swinging and swaying stage, of the 
most sumptuous description 
— an imposing cradle on 
wheels. It was drawn by 
six handsome horses, and 
by the side of the driver 
sat the " conductor," the 
legitimate captain of the 
craft; for it was his busi- 
ness to take charge and 
care of the mails, baggage, 
express matter, and passen- 
gers. We three were the 
only passengers, this trip. 
We sat on the back seat, 
inside. About all the rest of the coach was full of mail 
bags — for we had three days' delayed mails with us. Almost 
touching our knees, a perpendicular wall of mail matter rose up 




THE FACETIOUS DRIVER. 



26 



A NEW POST OFFICE 



to the roof. There was a great pile of it strapped on top of 
the stage, and both the fore and hind boots were full. "We 
had twenty-seven hundred pounds of it aboard, the driver 




PLEASING NEWS. 



said — " a little for Brigham, and Carson, and 'Frisco, but the 
heft of it for the Injuns, which is powerful troublesome 
'thout they get plenty of truck to read." But as he just then 
got up a fearful convulsion of his countenance which was sug- 
gestive of a wink being swallowed by an earthquake, we 
guessed that his remark was intended to be facetious, and to 
mean that we would unload the most of our mail matter 
somewhere on the Plains and leave it to the Indians, or 
whosoever wanted it. 

"We changed horses every ten miles, all day long, and fairly 
flew over the hard, level road. We jumped out and stretched 
our legs every time the coach stopped, and so the night found 
us still vivacious and unfatigued. 

After supper a woman got in, who lived about fifty miles 



A MODERN SPHTNX. 



27 



further on, and we three had to take turns at sitting outside 
with the driver and conductor. Apparently she was not a 
talkative woman. She would sit there in the gathering twi- 
light and fasten her steadfast eyes on a mosquito rooting into 
her arm, and slowly she would raise her other hand till she 
had got his range, and then she would launch a slap at him 
that would have jolted a cow; and after that she would sit and 
contemplate the corpse with tranquil satisfaction — for she 
never missed her mosquito ; she was a dead shot at short range. 
She never removed a carcase, but left them there for bait. I 
sat by this grim Sphynx and watched her kill thirty or forty 
mosquitoes — watched her, and waited for her to say something, 
but she never did. So I finally opened the conversation my- 
self. I said : 

" The mosquitoes are pretty bad, about here, madam." 

"You bet!" 

il What did I understand you to say, madam ?" 

"You bet!" 

Then she cheered up, and faced around and said : 

" Danged if I didn't begin to think you fellers was deef 
and dumb. I did, b' gosh. 
Here I've sot, and sot, and 
sot, a-bust'n muskeeters and 
wonderin' what was ailin' 
ye. Fust I thot you was 
deef and dumb, then I thot 
you was sick or crazy, or 
suthin', and then by and by 
I begin to reckon you was 
a passel of sickly fools that 
couldn't think of nothing 
to say. Wher'd ye come 
from?" 

The Sphynx was a 
Sphynx no more ! The fountains of her great deep were 
broken up, and she rained the nine parts of speech forty days 
and forty nights, metaphorically speaking, and buried us under 




THE SPHYNX. 



28 A SOCIABLE HEIFER. 

a desolating deluge of trivial gossip that left not a crag or pin^ 
nacle of rejoinder projecting above the tossing waste of dislo- 
cated grammar and decomposed pronunciation ! 

How we suffered, suffered, suffered ! She went on, hour 
after hour, till I was sorry I ever opened the mosquito ques- 
tion and gave her a start. She never did stop again until she 
got to her journey's end toward daylight ; and then she stirred 
us up as she was leaving the stage (for we were nodding, by 
that time), and said : 

" ISTow you git out at Cottonwood, you fellers, and lay over 
a couple o' days, and I'll be along some time to-night, and if 
I can do ye any good by edgin' in a word now and then, I'm 
right thar. Folks '11 tell you 't I've always ben kind o' offish 
and partic'lar for a gal that's raised in the woods, and I am, 
with the rag-tag and bob-tail, and a gal has to be, if she wants 
to be anything, but when people comes along which is my 
equals, I reckon I'm a pretty sociable heifer after all," 

We resolved not to " lay by at Cottonwood." 



OHAPTEK III. 

ABOUT an hour and a half before daylight we were bowl- 
ing along smoothly over the road — so smoothly that 
our cradle only rocked in a gentle, lulling way, that was grad- 
ually soothing us to sleep, and dulling our consciousness — 
when something gave away under us ! We were dimly aware 
of it, but indifferent to it. The coach stopped. We heard 
the driver and conductor talking together outside, and rum- 
maging for a lantern, and swearing because they could not 
find it — but we had no interest in whatever had happened, 
and it only added to our comfort to think of those people 
out there at work in the murky night, and we snug in our 
nest with the curtains drawn. But presently, by the sounds, 
there seemed to be an examination going on, and then the 
driver's voice said : 

" By George, the thoroughbrace is broke ! " 
This startled me broad awake — as an undefined sense of 
calamity is always apt to do. I said to myself : " Now, a 
thoroughbrace is probably part of a horse ; and doubtless a 
vital part, too, from the dismay in the driver's voice. Leg, 
maybe — and yet how could he break his leg waltzing along 
such a road as this ? No, it can't be his leg. That is impos- 
sible, unless he was reaching for the driver. Now, what can 
be the thoroughbrace of a horse, I wonder ? Well, whatever 
comes, I shall not air my ignorance in this crowd, anyway." 
Just then the conductor's face appeared at a lifted curtain, 



30 ABANDONING THE MAIL-BAGS. 

and his lantern glared in on us and our wall of mail matter. 
He said : 

" Gents, you'll have to turn out a spell. Thoroughbrace is 
broke." 

We climbed out into a chill drizzle, and felt ever so home- 
less and dreary. When I found that the thing they called a 
"thoroughbrace" was the massive combination of belts and 
springs which the coach rocks itself in, I said to the driver : 

" I never saw a thoroughbrace used up like that, before, 
that I can remember. How did it happen ? " 

"Why, it happened by trying to make one coach carry 
three days' mail — that's how it happened," said he. " And 
right here is the very direction which is wrote on all the 
newspaper-bags which was to be put out for the Injuns for to 
keep 'em quiet. It's most uncommon lucky, becuz it's so 
nation dark I should 'a' gone by unbeknowns if that air 
thoroughbrace hadn't broke." 

I knew that he was in labor with another of those winks 
of his, though I could not see his face, because he was bent 
down at work ; and wishing him a safe delivery, I turned to 
and helped the rest get out the mail-sacks. It made a great 
pyramid by the roadside when it was all out. When they had 
mended the thoroughbrace we filled the two boots again, but 
put no mail on top, and only half as much inside as there was 
before. The conductor bent all the seat-backs down, and then 
filled the coach just half full of mail-bags from end to end. 
We objected loudly to this, for it left us no seats. But the 
conductor was wiser than we, and said a bed was better than 
seats, and moreover, this plan would protect his thoroughbraces. 
We never wanted any seats after that. The lazy bed was infi- 
nitely preferable. I had many an exciting day, subsequently, 
lying on it reading the statutes and the dictionary, and won- 
dering how the characters would turn out. 

The conductor said he would send back a guard from the 
next station to take charge of the abandoned mail-bags, and 
we drove on. 

It was now just dawn ; and as we stretched our cramped 



SLEEPING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 31 

legs full length on the mail sacks, and gazed out through the 
windows across the wide wastes of greensward clad in cool, 
powdery mist, to where there was an expectant look in the 
eastern horizon, our perfect enjoyment took the form of a 
tranquil and contented ecstasy. The stage whirled along at a 
spanking gait, the breeze napping curtains and suspended 
coats in a most exhilarating way ; the cradle swayed and swung 
luxuriously, the pattering of the horses' hoofs, the cracking 
of the driver's whip, and his " Hi-yi ! g'lang ! " were music ; 
the spinning ground and the waltzing trees appeared to give 
us a mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack up and look 
after us with interest, or envy, or something ; and as we lay 
and smoked the pipe of peace and compared all this luxury 
with the years of tiresome city life that had gone before it, we 
felt that there was only one complete and satisfying happiness 
in the world, and we had found it. 

After breakfast, at some station whose name I have forgot- 
ten, we three climbed up on the seat behind the driver, and 
let the conductor have our bed for a nap. And by and by, 
when the sun made me drowsy, I lay down on my face on top 
of the coach, grasping the slender iron railing, and slept for 
an hour or more. That will give one an appreciable idea of 
those matchless roads. Instinct will make a sleeping man grip 
a fast hold of the railing when the stage jolts, but when it only 
swings and sways, no grip is necessary. Overland drivers and 
conductors used to sit in their places and sleep thirty or forty 
minutes at a time, on good roads, while spinning along at the 
rate of eight or ten miles an hour. I saw them do it, often. 
There was no danger about it ; a sleeping man will seize the 
irons in time when the coach jolts. These men were hard 
worked, and it was not possible for them to stay awake all the 
time. 

By and by we passed through Marysville, and over the 
Big Blue and Little Sandy ; thence about a mile, and entered 
Nebraska. About a mile further on, we came to the Big 
Sandy — one hundred and eighty miles from St. Joseph. 

As the sun was going down, we saw the first specimen of 



32 



A LONG-EAREB ANIMAL. 



an animal known familiarly over two thousand miles of moun- 
tain and desert — from Kansas clear to the Pacific Ocean — as 
the "jackass rabbit." He is well named. He is just like any 
other rabbit, except that he is from one third to twice as large, 
has longer legs in proportion to his size, and has the most pre- 
posterous ears that ever were mounted on any creature but a 
jackass. When he is sitting quiet, thinking about his sins, or 
is absent-minded or unapprehensive of danger, his majestic 

ears project above him con- 
spicuously ; but the break- 
ing of a twig will scare 
him nearly to death, and 
then he tilts his ears back 
gently and starts for home. 
All you can see, then, for 
the next minute, is his long 
gray form stretched out 
straight and " streaking it " 
through the low sage-brush, 
head erect, eyes right, and 
ears just canted a little to 
the rear, but showing you 
where the animal is, all the 
time, the same as if he carried a jib. Now and then he makes 
a marvelous spring with his long legs, high over the stunted 
sage-brush, and scores a leap that would make a horse envious. 
Presently he comes down to a long, graceful "lope," and 
shortly he mysteriously disappears. He has crouched behind 
a sage-bush, and will sit there and listen and tremble until you 
get within six feet of him, when he will get under way again. 
But one must shoot at this creature once, if he wishes to see 
him throw his heart into his heels, and do the best he knows 
how. He is frightened clear through, now, and he lays his 
long ears down on his back, straightens himself out like a 
yard-stick every spring he makes, and scatters miles behind 
him with an easy indifference that is enchanting. 

Our party made this specimen "hump himself," as the 




MEDITATION. 



AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE MODERNIZED 



3b 



conductor said. The secretary started him with a shot from 
the Colt ; I commenced spitting at him with my weapon ; and 
all in the same instant the old " Allen's " whole broadside let 
go with a rat- 



^\ 




j j 



ON BUSINESS. 



Long after 



tling crash, and 
it is not put- 
ting it too 
strong to say 
that the rabbit 
was frantic! 
He dropped his 
ears, set up his 
tail, and left for 
San Francisco 
at a speed which 

can only be described as a flash and a vanish ! 
he was out of sight we could hear him whiz. 

I do not remember where we first came across " sage- 
brush," but as I have been speaking of it I may as well describe 
it. This is easily done, for if the reader can imagine a gnarled 

— . and venerable live oak-tree 

reduced to a little shrub 
two feet high, with its rough 
bark, its foliage, its twisted 
boughs, all complete, he can 
picture the " sage-brush " 
exactly. Often, on lazy af- 
ternoons in the mountains, 
I have lain on the ground 
with my face under a sage- 
bush, and entertained my- 
self with fancying that the 
gnats among its foliage were 
liliputian birds, and that 
the ants marching and countermarching about its base were 
liliputian flocks and herds, and myself some vast loafer from 
Brobdignag waiting to catch a little citizen and eat him. 

It is an imposing monarch of the forest in exquisite minia- 

3t 





§gj|§p 










%^^^^^^^^^ 





AUTHOR AS GULLIVER. 



34, THE EMIGRANT'S FRIEND. 

ture, is the " sage-brush." Its foliage is a grayish green, and 
gives that tint to desert and mountain. It smells like our do- 
mestic sage, and " sage-tea " made from it tastes like the sage- 
tea which all boys are so well acquainted with. The sage- 
brush is a singularly hardy plant, and grows right in the midst 
of deep sand, and among barren rocks, where nothing else in 
the vegetable world would try to grow, except "bunch- 
grass." * The sage-bushes grow from three to six or seven 
feet apart, all over the mountains and deserts of the Far West, 
clear to the borders of California. There is not a tree of any 
kind in the deserts, for hundreds of miles — there is no vegeta- 
tion at all in a regular desert, except the sage-brush and its 
cousin the " greasewood," which is so much like the sage- 
brush that the difference amounts to little. Camp-fires and 
hot suppers in the deserts would be impossible but for the 
friendly sage-brush. Its trunk is as large as a boy's wrist (and 
from that up to a man's arm), and its crooked branches are 
half as large as its trunk — all good, sound, hard wood, very 
like oak. 

When a party camps, the first thing to be done is to cut 
sage-brush ; and in a few minutes there is an opulent pile of 
it ready for use. A hole a foot wide, two feet deep, and two 
feet long, is dug, and sage-brush chopped up and burned in it 
till it is full to the brim with glowing coals. Then the cooking 
begins, and there is no smoke, and consequently no swearing. 
Such a fire will keep all night, with very little replenishing ; 
and it makes a very sociable camp-fire, and one around which 
the most impossible reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, 
and profoundly entertaining. 

Sage-brush is very fair fuel, but as a vegetable it is a dis- 
tinguished failure. Nothing can abide the taste of it but the 

*" Bunch-grass " grows on the bleak mountain-sides of Nevada and 
neighboring territories, and offers excellent feed for stock, even in the dead 
of winter, wherever the snow is blown aside and exposes it ; notwithstand- 
ing its unpromising home, bunch-grass is a better and more nutritious diet 
for cattle and horses than almost any other hay or grass that is known— -so 
&tock-men say. 



A NEW ARTICLE OF DIET. 



35 



jackass and his illegitimate child the mule. But their testi- 
mony to its mitritiousness is worth nothing, for they will eat 
pine knots, or anthracite coal, or brass filings, or lead pipe, or 
old bottles, or anything that comes handy, and then go off 
looking as grateful as if they had had oysters for dinner. Mules 
and donkeys and camels have appetites that anything will 
relieve temporarily, but nothing satisfy. In Syria, once, at 
the head-waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of my 
overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it 
with a critical eye, all over, with as much interest as if he had 
an idea of getting one made like it ; and then, after he was 




cK "tougX sf<tf enters 



done figuring on it as an article of apparel, he began to con- 
template it as an article of diet. He put his foot on it, and 



36 ''TOO TOUGH FOR A CAMEL." 

lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and 
chewed at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while opening 
and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he had 
never tasted anything as good as an overcoat before, in his life. 
Then he smacked his lips once or twice, and reached after the 
other sleeve. Next he tried the velvet collar, and smiled a 
smile of such contentment that it was plain to see that he 
regarded that as the daintiest thing about an overcoat. The 
tails went next, along with some percussion caps and cough 
candy, and some fig-paste from Constantinople. And then my 
newspaper correspondence dropped out, and he took a chance 
in that — manuscript letters written for the home papers. But 
he was treading on dangerous ground, now. He began to 
come across solid wisdom in those documents that was rather 
weighty on his stomach; and occasionally he would take a 
joke that would shake him up till it loosened his teeth ; it was 
getting to be perilous times with him, but he held his grip 
with good courage and hopefully, till at last he began to stum- 
ble on statements that not even a camel could swallow with 
impunity. He began to gag and gasp, and his eyes to stand 
out, and his forelegs to spread, and in about a quarter of a min- 
ute he fell over as stiff as a carpenter's work-bench, and died a 
death of indescribable agony. I went and pulled the manu- 
script out of his mouth, and found that the sensitive creature 
had choked to death on one of the mildest and gentlest state- 
ments of fact that I ever laid before a trusting public. 

I was about to say, when diverted from my subject, that 
occasionally one finds sage-bushes five or six feet high, and 
with a spread of branch and foliage in proportion, but two or 
two and a half feet is the usual height. 



CHAPTEE IV- 

AS the sun went down and the evening chill came on, we 
made preparation for bed. We stirred up the hard 
leather letter-sacks, and the knotty canvas bags of printed 
matter (knotty and uneven because of projecting ends and 
corners of magazines, boxes and books). We stirred them up 
and redisposed them in such a way as to make our bed as level 
as possible. And we did improve it, too, though after all our 
work it had an upheaved and billowy look about it, like a little 
piece of a stormy sea. Next we hunted up our boots from 
odd nooks among the mail-bags where they had settled, and 
put them on. Then we got down our coats, vests, pantaloons 
and heavy woolen shirts, from the arm-loops where they had 
been swinging all day, and clothed ourselves in them — for, 
there being no ladies either at the stations or in the coach, and 
the weather being hot, we had looked to our comfort by strips 
ping to our underclothing, at nine o'clock in the morning. 
All things being now ready, we stowed the uneasy Dictionary 
where it would lie as quiet as possible, and placed the water- 
canteens and pistols where we could find them in the dark. 
Then we smoked a final pipe, and swapped a final yarn ; after 
which, we put the pipes, tobacco and bag of coin in snug holes 
and caves among the mail-bags, and then fastened down the 
coach curtains all around, and made the place as " dark as the 
inside of a cow," as the conductor phrased it in his pictur- 
esque way. It was certainly as dark as any place could be — 
nothing was even dimly visible in it. And finally, we rolled 



3S NIGHT TRAVELING. 

ourselves up like silk-worms, eacli person in his own blanket, 
and sank peacefully to sleep. 

Whenever the stage stopped to change horses, we would 
wake up, and try to recollect where we were — and succeed — 
and in a minute or two the stage would be off again, and we 
likewise. "We began to get into country, now, threaded 
here and there with little streams. These had high, steep 
banks on each side, and every time we flew down one bank 
and scrambled up the other, our party inside got mixed some- 
what. First we would all be down in a pile at the forward 




THIRD TKIP OF THE UNABRIDGED. 



end of the stage, nearly in a sitting posture, and in a second 
we would shoot to the other end, and stand on our heads. And 
we would sprawl and kick, too, and ward off ends and corners 
of mail-bags that came lumbering over us and about us ; and 
as the dust rose from the tumult, we would all sneeze in chorus, 
and the majority of us would grumble, and probably say some 
hasty thing, like : " Take your elbow out of my ribs ! — can't 
you quit crowding ? " 

Every time we avalanched from one end of the stage to the 
other, the Unabridged Dictionary would come too ; and every 



AT THE STATION. 39 

time it came it damaged somebody. One trip it " barked " 
the Secretary's elbow ; the next trip it hurt me in the stomach, 
and the third it tilted Bemis's nose up till he could look dowu 
his nostrils — he said. The pistols and coin soon settled to the 
bottom, but the pipes, pipe-stems, tobacco and canteens clattered 
and floundered after the Dictionary every time it made an as- 
sault on us, and aided and abetted the book by spilling tobacco 
in our eyes, and water down our backs. 

Still, all things considered, it was a very comfortable night. 
It wore gradually away, and when at last a cold gray light was 
visible through the puckers and chinks in the curtains, we 
yawned and stretched with satisfaction, shed onr cocoons, and 
felt that we had slept as much as was necessary. By and by, 
as the sun rose up and warmed the world, we pulled off our 
clothes and got ready for breakfast. We were just pleasantly 
in time, for five minutes afterward the driver sent the weird 
music of his bugle winding over the grassy solitudes, and 
presently we detected a low hut or two in the distance. Then 
the rattling of the coach, the clatter of our six horses' hoofs, 
and the driver's crisp commands, awoke to a louder and stronger 
emphasis, and we went sweeping down on the station at our 
smartest speed. It was fascinating — that old overland stage- 
coaching. 

We jumped out in undress uniform. The driver tossed his 
gathered reins out on the ground, gaped and stretched com- 
placently, drew off his heavy buckskin gloves with great deliber- 
ation and insufferable dignity — taking not the slightest notice 
of a dozen solicitous inquiries after his health, and humbly face- 
tious and flattering accostings, and obsequious tenders of service, 
from five or six hairy and half-civilized station-keepers and 
hostlers who were nimbly unhitching our steeds and bringing 
the fresh team out of the stables — for in the eyes of the stage- 
driver of that day, station-keepers and hostlers were a sort of 
good enough low creatures, useful in their place, and helping 
to make up a world, but not the kind of beings which a person 
of distinction could afford to concern himself with ; while, on 
the contrary, in the eyes of the station-keeper and the hostler, 



40 THE OVERLAND DRIVER. 

the stage-driver was a hero — a great and shining dignitary, 
the world's favorite son, the envy of the people, the observed 
of the nations. When they spoke to him they received his 
insolent silence meekly, and as being the natural and proper 
conduct of so great a man ; when he opened his lips they all 
hung on his words with admiration (he never honored a par- 
ticular individual with a remark, but addressed it with a broad 
generality to the horses, the stables, the surrounding country 
and the human underlings) ; when he discharged a facetious 
insulting personality at a hostler, that hostler was happy for 
the day ; when he uttered his one jest — old as the hills, coarse, 
profane, witless, and inflicted on the same audience, in the 
same language, every time his coach drove up there — the var- 
lets roared, and slapped their thighs, and swore it was the best 
thing they'd ever heard in all their lives. And how they 
would fly around when he wanted a basin of water, a gourd 
of the same, or a light for his pipe ! — but they would instantly 
insult a passenger if he so far forgot himself as to crave a 
favor at their hands. They could do that sort of insolence as 
well as the driver they copied it from — for, let it be borne in 
mind, the overland driver had but little less contempt for his 
passengers than he had for his hostlers. 

The hostlers and station-keepers treated the really power- 
ful conductor of the coach merely with the best of what was 
their idea of civility, but the driver was the only being they 
bowed down to and worshipped. How admiringly they 
would gaze up at him in his high seat as he gloved himself 
with lingering deliberation, while some happy hostler held the 
bunch of reins aloft, and waited patiently for him to take it ! 
And how they would bombard him with glorifying ejaculations 
as he cracked his long whip and went careering away. 

The station buildings were long, low huts, made of sun- 
dried, mud-colored bricks, laid up without mortar {adobes, the 
Spaniards call these bricks, and Americans shorten it to 
■dobies). The roofs, which had no slant to them worth speak- 
ing of, were thatched and then sodded or covered with a thick 
layer of earth, and from this sprung a pretty rank growth of 



ACCOMMODATIONS AT THE "STATION-HOUSE." 41 



weeds and grass. It was the first time we had ever seen a 
man's front yard on top of his house. The buildings consisted 
of barns, stable-room for twelve or fifteen horses, and a hut 
for an eating-room for passengers. This latter had bunks in 
it for the station-keeper and a hostler or two. You could rest 
your elbow on its eaves, and yOu had to bend in order to get 
in at the door. In place of a window there was a square hole 
about large enough for a man to crawl through, but this had 
no glass in it. There was no flooring, but the ground w T as 
packed hard. There was no stove, but the fire-place served 
all needful purposes. There were no shelves, no cupboards, 
no closets. In a corner stood 
an open sack of flour, 



and 
nestling against its base were 
a couple of black and vener- 
able tin coffee-pots, a tin tea- 
pot, a little bag of salt, and a 
side of bacon. 

By the door of the station- 
keeper's den, outside, was a 
tin wash-basin, on the ground. !| 
Near it was a pail of water 
and a piece of yellow bar 
soap, and from the eaves 
hung a hoary blue woolen 
shirt, significantly — but this 
latter was the station-keeper's 
private towel, and only two 
persons in all the party 
might venture to use it — the 
stage-driver and the con- 
ductor. The latter would not, from a sense of decency ; the 
former would not, because he did not choose to encourage the 
advances of a station-keeper. We had towels — in the valise ; 
they might as well have been in Sodom and Gomorrah. We 
(and the conductor, ^sed our handkerchiefs, and the driver his 
pantaloons and sleeves. By the door, inside, was rastened a 
small old-fashioned looking-glass frame, w T ith two little frag- 




A POWERFUL GLASS. 



42 



OUR WORTHY LANDLORD. 




AN HEIRLOOM. 



ments of the original mirror lodged down in one corner of it. 
This arrangement afforded a pleasant double-barreled portrait 
of yon when you looked into it, with one half of your head set 
up a couple of inches above the other half. From the glass 
frame hung the half of a comb by a string — but if I had to 
describe that patriarch or die, I believe I would order some 

sample coffins. It had come 
down from Esau and Samson, 
and had been accumulating 
hair ever since — along with 
certain impurities. In one 
corner of the room stood three 
or four rifles and muskets, together with horns and pouches of 

ammunition. The station-men 
wore pantaloons of coarse, 
country-woven stuff, and into 
the seat and the inside of the 
legs were sewed ample additions 
of buckskin, to do duty in place 
of leggings, when the man rode 
horseback — so the pants were 
half dull blue and half yellow, 
and unspeakably picturesque. 
The pants were stuffed into the 
tops of high boots, the heels 
whereof were armed with great 
Spanish spurs, whose little iron 
clogs and chains jingled with 
every step. The man wore a 
huge beard and mustachios, an 
old slouch hat, a blue woolen 
shirt, no suspenders, no vest, no 
coat — in a leathern sheath in his 
belt, a great long "navy" re- 
volver (slung on right side, hammer to the front), and project- 
ing from his boot a horn -handled towie-knife. The furniture 
of the hut was neither gorgeous nor much in the way. The 
rocking-chairs and sofas were not present, and never had been, 




OUR LANDLORD. 



HIS "FIXINGS AND THINGS.' 



43 



but they were represented by two three-legged stools, a pine- 
board bench four feet long, and two empty candle-boxes. 
The table was a greasy board on stilts, and the table-cloth and 
napkins had not come — and they were not looking for them, 
either. A battered tin platter, a knife and fork, and a tin pint 
cup, were at each man's place, and the driver had a queens- 
ware saucer that had seen better days. Of course this duke 
sat at the head of the table. There was one isolated piece of 
table furniture that bore about it a touching air of grandeur 
in misfortune. This was the caster. It was German silver, 
and crippled and rusty, but it was so preposterously out of 
place there that it was suggestive of a tattered exiled king 
among barbarians, and the majesty of its native position com- 
pelled respect even in its degradation. There was only one 
cruet left, and that was a stopperless, fly-specked, broken- 
necked thing, with two 
inches of vinegar in it, and 
a dozen preserved flies with 
their heels up and looking 
sorry they had invested 
there. 

The station-keeper up- 
ended a disk of last week's 
bread, of the shape and size 
of an old-time cheese, and 
carved some slabs from it 
which were as good as Ni- 
cholson pavement, and ten- 
derer. 

He sliced off a piece of bacon for each man, but only the 
experienced old hands made out to eat it, for it was condemned 
army bacon which the United States would not feed to its 
soldiers in the forts, and the stage company had bought it 
cheap for the sustenance of their passengers and employes. 
We may have found this condemned army bacon further out 
on the plains than the section I am locating it in, but we found 
it — there is no gainsaying that. 

Then he poured for us a beverage which he called " Slum? 




DIGNIFIED EXILE. 



4± 



HOW HE "KEPT A HOTEL." 



gidlion" and it is hard to think he was not inspired when 
he named it. It really pretended to be tea, but there was 
too much dish-rag, and sand, and old bacon-rind in it to deceive 







DRINKING b.LUALUL.L^.nJi.N. 



the intelligent traveler. He had no sugar and no milk — not 
even a spoon to stir the ingredients with. 

We could not eat the bread or the meat, nor drink the 
" slumgullion." And when I looked at that melancholy vinegar- 
cruet, I thought of the anecdote (a very, very old one, even 
at that day) of the traveler who sat down to a table which 
had nothing on it but a mackerel and a pot of mustard. He 
asked the landlord if this was all. The landlord said : 

" All ! Why, thunder and lightning, I should think there 
was mackerel enough there for six." 

" But I don't like mackerel." 

" Oh — then help yourself to the mustard." 

In other days I had considered it a good, a very good, 
anecdote, but there was a dismal plausibility about it, here, 
that took all the humor out of it. 



ETIQUETTE AT THE TABLE. 



45 



Our breakfast was before ns, but our teeth were idle. 
I tasted and smelt, and said I would take coffee, I believed. 
The station-boss stopped dead still, and glared at me speech- 
less. At last, when he came to, he turned away and said, as one 
who communes with himself upon a matter too vast to grasp : 

" Coffee ! "Well, if that 
don't go clean ahead of me, 
I' m d d!" 

We could not eat, and 
there was* no conversation 
among the hostlers and 
herdsmen — we all sat at the 
same board. At least these 
was no conversation further 
than a single hurried request, 
now and then, from one em- 
ploye to another. It was 
always in the same form, 
and always gruffly friendly. 
Its western freshness and 
novelty startled me, at first, 
and interested me; but it 
presently grew monotonous, 
and lost its charm. It was : 

" Pass the bread, you son 
of a skunk ! " No, I forget — skunk was not the word ; it seems 
to me it was still stronger than that ; I know it was, in fact, 
but it is gone from my memory, apparently. However, it is 
no matter — probably it was too strong for print, anyway. It 
is the landmark in my memory which tells me where I first 
encountered the vigorous new vernacular of the occidental 
plains and mountains. 

"We gave up the breakfast, and paid our dollar apiece and 
went back to our mail-bag bed in the coach, and found com- 
fort in our pipes. Eight here we suffered the first diminution 
of our princely state. We left our six fine horses and took six 
mules in their place. But they were wild Mexican fellows, and 




A JOKE WITHOUT CREAM. 



46 OVERLAND JOURNEY TEN TEARS AGO. 

a man had to stand at the head of each of them and hold him 
fast while the driver gloved and got himself ready. And 
when at last he grasped the reins and gave the word, the men 
sprung suddenly away from the mules' heads and the coach 
shot from the station as if it had issued from a cannon. How 
the frantic animals did scamper ! It was a fierce and furious 
gallop — and the gait never altered for a moment till we reeled 
oif ten or twelve miles and swept up to the next collection of 
little station-huts and stables. 

So we flew along all day. At 2 p.m. the belt of timber 
that fringes the North Platte and marks its windings through 
the vast level floor of the Plains came in sight. At 4 p.m. 
we crossed a branch of the river, and at 5 p.m. we crossed 
the Platte itself, and landed at Fort Kearney, Jlfty-six hours 
out from St. Joe — three hundred miles ! 

Now that was stage-coaching on the great overland, ten or 
twelve years ago, when perhaps not more than ten men in 
America, all told, expected to live to see a railroad follow that 
route to the Pacific. But the railroad is there, now, and it 
pictures a thousand odd comparisons and contrasts in my mind 
to read the following sketch, in the New York Times, of a 
recent trip over almost the very ground I have been describ- 
ing. I can scarcely comprehend the new state of things : 

"ACROSS THE CONTINENT. 

" At 4.20 P.M., Sunday, we rolled out of the station at Omaha, and started 
westward on our long jaunt. A couple of hours out, dinner was announced — 
an " event " to those of us who had yet to experience what it is to eat in one 
of Pullman's hotels on wheels ; so, stepping into the car next forward of 
our sleeping palace, we found ourselves in the dining-car. It was a reve- 
lation to us, that first dinner on Sunday. And though we continued to dine 
for four days, and had as many breakfasts and suppers, our whole party 
never ceased to admire the perfection of the arrangements, and the marvelous 
results achieved. Upon tables covered with snowy linen, and garnished with 
services of solid silver, Ethiop waiters, flitting about in spotless white, placed 
as by magic a repast at which Delmonico himself could have had no occa- 
sion to blush ; and, indeed, in some respects it would be hard for that distin- 
guished chef to match our menu ; for, in addition to all that ordinarily makes 



ACROSS THE CONTINENT. 



47 



up a first-chop dinner, had we not our antelope steak (the gormand who has 
not experienced this — bah ! what does he know of the feast of fat things ?) 
our delicious mountain-brook trout, and choice fruits and berries, and (sauce 
piquant and unpurchasable !) our sweet-scented, appetite-compelling- air of 
the prairies ? You may depend upon it, we all did justice to the good things, 
and as we washed them down with bumpers of sparkling Krug, whilst we 




PULLMAN CAK DINING-SALOON. 



sped along at the rate of thirty miles an hour, agreed it was the fastest living 
we had ever experienced. (We beat that, however, two days afterward 
when we made twenty -seven miles in twenty-seven minutes, while our Cham- 
pagne glasses filled to the brim spilled not a drop !) After dinner we re- 
paired to our drawing-room car, and, as it was Sabbath eve, intoned some of 
the grand old hymns — " Praise God from whom," etc. ; " Shining Shore," 
" Coronation," etc. — the voices of the men singers and of the women singers 
blending sweetly in the evening air, while our train, with its great, glaring 
Polyphemus eye, lighting up long vistas of prairie, rushed into the night 
and the Wild. Then to bed in luxurious couches, where we slept the sleep 
of the just and only awoke the next morning (Monday) at eight o'clock, to 
find ourselves at the crossing of the North Platte, three hundred miles from 
Omaha— fifteen hours and forty minutes out." 



OHAPTEE Y. 

ANOTHER night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil. 
But morning came, by and by. It was another glad 
awakening to fresh breezes, vast expanses of level greensward, 
bright sunlight, an impressive solitude utterly without visible 
human beings or human habitations, and an atmosphere of 
such amazing magnifying properties that trees that seemed 
close at hand were more than three miles away. We resumed 
undress uniform, climbed a-top of the flying coach, dangled 
our legs over the side, shouted occasionally at our frantic 
mules, merely to see them lay their ears back and scamper 
faster, tied our hats on to keep our hair from blowing away, 
and leveled an outlook over the world-wide carpet about us 
for things new and strange to gaze at. Even at this day it 
thrills me through and through to think of the life, the glad- 
ness and the wild sense of freedom that used to make the 
blood dance in my veins on those fine overland mornings ! 

Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first prai- 
rie-dog villages, the first antelope, and the first wolf. If I 
remember rightly, this latter was the regular eayoie (pro- 
nounced ky-6>-te) of the farther deserts And if it was, he 
was not a pretty creature or respectable either, for I got well 
acquainted with his race afterward, and ca*i speak with con- 
fidence. The cayote is a long, slim sick and sorry-looking 



THE CAYOTE 



49 




Ol/K MOUSING RIDE. 



skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably 
bushy tail that forever sags down with a despairing expression 
of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, 
sharp face, with 



slightly lifted lip 
and exposed teeth. 
He has a general 
slinking expression 
all over. The ca- 
yote is a living, 
breathing allegory 
of Want. He is 
always hungry. He 
is always poor, out 
of luck and friend- 
less. The meanest 
creatures despise 
him, and even the 
fleas would desert 
him for a velocipede. He is so spiritless and cowardly that 
even while his exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest 
of his face is apologizing for it. And he is so homely ! — so 
scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful. When he 
sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and 
then turns a little out of the course he was pursuing, de- 
presses his head a bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot 
through the sage-brush, glancing over his shoulder at you, 
from time to time, till he is about out of easy pistol range, 
and then he stops and takes a deliberate survey of you; 
he will trot fifty yards and stop again — another fifty and stop 
again ; and finally the gray of his gliding body blends with 
the gray of the sage-brush, and he disappears. All this is 
when you make no demonstration against him ; but if you do, 
he develops a livelier interest in his journey, and instantly 
electrifies his heels and puts such a deal of real estate between 
himself and your weapon, that by the time you have raised 
the hammer you see that you need a minie rifle, and by the 



50 



A DOG'S EXPERIENCES. 



time you have got him in line you need a rifled cannon, and 
by the time you have " drawn a bead " on him you see well 
enough that nothing but an unusually long-winded streak of 
lightning could reach him where he is now. But if you start 
a swift-footed dog after him, you will enjoy it ever so much — 
especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of himself, and 
has been brought up to think he knows something about speed. 

The cayote will go swing- 
ing gently off on that de- 
ceitful trot of his, and 
every little while he will 
smile a fraudful smile 
over his shoulder that 
I will fill that dog entirely 
full of encouragement and 
worldly ambition, and 
make him lay his head 
still lower to the ground, 
and stretch his neck fur- 
ther to the front, and 
pant more fiercely, and 
stick his tail out straighter 
behind, and move his fu- 
rious legs with a yet 
wilder frenzy, and leave a 
broader and broader, and 
higher and denser cloud 
of desert sand smoking behind, and marking his long wake 
across the level plain ! And all this time the dog is only a short 
twenty feet behind the cayote, and to save the soul of him he 
cannot understand why it is that he cannot get perceptibly 
closer ; and he begins to get aggravated, and it makes him mad- 
der and madder to see how gently the cayote glides along 
and never pants or sweats or ceases to smile ; and he grows still 
more and more incensed to see how shamefully he has been 
taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble swindle 
that long, calm, soft-footed trot is ; and next he notices that he 




PRAIRIE DOGS. 



A DOG'S EXPERIENCES CONTINUED. 51 

is getting fagged, and that the cayote actually has to slacken 
speed a little to keep from running away from him — and then 
that town-dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to strain and 
weep and swear, and paw the sand higher than ever, and reach 
for the cayote with concentrated and desperate energy. This 
" spurt " finds him six feet behind the gliding enemy, and two 
miles from his friends. And then, in the instant that a wild 
new hope is Hghting up his face, the cayote turns and smiles 
blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it 
which seems to say : " Well, I shall have to tear myself away 
from you, bub — business is business, and it will not do for me 



&g^h££h.S2h^ <?^A rJ\ 



M^tfp&F c^/^ v.-^^^^r ^ ^ 




A CAYOTE. 



to be fooling along this way all day " — and forthwith there is 
a rushing sound, and the sudden splitting of a long crack 
through the atmosphere, and behold that dcg is solitary and 
alone in the midst of a vast solitude ! 

It makes his head swim. He stops, and looks all around ; 
climbs the nearest sand-mound, and gazes into the distance; 
shakes his head reflectively, and then, without a word, he 
turns and jogs along back to his train, and iakes up a humble 
position under the hindmost wagon, and feels unspeakably 
mean, and looks ashamed, and hangs his tail at half-mast for a 
week. And for as much as a year after that, whenever there 
is a great hue and cry after a cayote, that dog will merely 
glance in that direction without emotion, and apparently ob- 
serve to himself, " I believe 1 do not wish any of the pie." 



52 



THE CAYOTE FAMILY AND KIN 



The cayote lives chiefly in the most desolate and forbidding 
deserts, along with the lizard, the jackass-rabbit and the raven, 
and gets an uncertain and precarious living, and earns it. He 
seems to subsist almost wholly on the carcases of oxen, mules 
and horses that have dropped out of emigrant trains and died, 
and upon windfalls of carrion, and occasional legacies of 







SHOWING RESPECT TO RELATIVES. 



offal bequeathed to him 
by white men who have 
been opulent enough to 
have something better 
to butcher than con- 
demned army bacon. 
He will eat anything in 
the world that his first cousins, the desert-frequenting tribes 
of Indians will, and they 'will eat anything they can bite. 
It is a curious fact that these latter are the only creatures 
known to history who will eat nitro-glycerine and ask for 
more if they survive. 

The cayote of the deserts beyond the Rocky Mountains 
has a peculiarly hard time of it, owing to the fact that his 
relations, the Indians, are just as apt to be the first to detect 
a seductive scent on the desert breeze, and follow the fragrance 
to the late ox it emanated from, as he is himself; and when 
this occurs he has to content himself with sitting off at a little 



BOARDING NEAR BY. 53 

distance watching those people strip off and dig ont everything 
edible, and walk off with it. Then he and the waiting ravens 
explore the skeleton and polish the bones. It is considered 
that the cayote, and the obscene bird, and the Indian of the 
desert, testify their blood kinship with each other in that thej 
live together in the waste places of the earth on terms of per 
feet confidence and friendship, while hating all other creature' 
and yearning to assist at their funerals. He does not mine 
going a hundred miles to breakfast, and a hundred and fifty to 
dinner, because he is sure to have three or four days between 
meals, and he can just as well be traveling and looking at the 
scenery as lying around doing nothing and adding to the bur- 
dens of his parents. 

We soon learned to recognize the sharp, vicious bark of the 
cayote as it came across the murky plain at night to disturb 
our dreams among the mail-sacks ; and remembering his for- 
lorn aspect and his hard fortune, made shift to wish him the 
blessed novelty of a long day's good luck and a limitless larder 
the morrow. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

OUR new conductor (just shipped) had been without sleep 
for twenty hours. Such a thing was very frequent. 
,%1 rom St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, by stage- 
coach, was nearly nineteen hundred miles, and the trip was 
often made in fifteen days (the cars do it in four and a half, 
now), but the time specified in the mail contracts, and required 
by the schedule, was eighteen or nineteen days, if I remember 
rightly. This was to make fair allowance for winter storms 
and snows, and other unavoidable causes of detention. The 
stage company had everything under strict discipline and good 
system. Over each two hundred and fifty miles of road they 
placed an agent or superintendent, and invested him with 
great authority. His beat or jurisdiction of two hundred and 
fifty miles was called a " division." He purchased horses, 
mules harness, and food for men and beasts, and distributed 
these things among his stage stations, from time to time, ac- 
cording to his judgment of what each station needed. He 
erected station buildings and dug wells. He attended to the 
•^aying of the station-keepers, hostlers, drivers and blacksmiths, 
;5ld discharged them whenever he chose. He was a very, 
very great man in his " division" — a kind of Grand Mogul, a 
Sultan of the Indies, in whose presence common men were 
•nodest of speech and manner, and in the glare of whose great- 
ness even the dazzling stage-driver dwindled to a penny dip. 
There were about eight of these kings, all told, on the over- 
land route. 

Next in rank and importance to the division-agent came the 



THE OVERLAND CONDUCTOR 



55 



* conductor." His beat was the same length as the agent' s — 
two hundred and fifty miles. He sat with the driver, and 
(when necessary) rode that fearful distance, night and day, 
without other rest or sleep than what he could get perched 
thus on top of the flying vehicle. Think of it ! He had abso- 
lute charge of the mails, express matter, passengers and stage, 
coach, until he delivered them to the next conductor, and got 
his receipt for them. Con- s 
sequently he had to be a / 
man of intelligence, de- 
cision and considerable ex- 
ecutive ability. He was 
usually a quiet, pleasant 
man, who attended closely 
to his duties, and was a good 
deal of a gentleman. It was 
not absolutely necessary that 
the division-agent should be 
a gentleman, and occasion- 
ally he wasn't. But he was 
always a general in admin- 
istrative ability, and a bull- 
dog in courage and deter- 
mination — otherwise the 
chieftainship over the law- 
less underlings of the over- 
land service would never in any instance have been to him 
anything but an equivalent for a month .of insolence and dis- 
tress and a bullet and a coffin at the end of it. There were 
about sixteen or eighteen conductors on the overland, for there 
was a daily stage each way, and a conductor on every stage. 

Next in real and official rank and importance, after the 
conductor, came my delight, the driver — next in real but not 
in apparent importance — for we have seen that in the eyes of 
the common herd the driver was to the conductor as an admi- 
ral is to the captain of the flag-ship. The driver's beat was 
pretty long, and his sleeping-time at the stations pretty short, 




THE CONDUCTOR. 



56 DRIVERS DOING DOUBLE DUTY. 

sometimes ; and so, but for the grandeur of his position his 
would have been a sorry life, as well as a hard and a wearing 
one. We took a new driver every day or every night (for 
they drove backward and forward over the same piece of road 
all the time), and therefore we never got as well acquainted 
with them as we did with the conductors ; and besides, they 
would have been above being familiar with such rubbish as 
passengers, anyhow, as a general thing. Still, we were always 
eager to get a sight of each and every new driver as soon as the 
watch changed, for each and every day we were either anxious to 
get rid of an unpleasant one, or loath to part with a driver we 
had learned to like and had come to be sociable and friendly 
with. And so the first question we asked the conductor when- 
ever we got to where we were to exchange drivers, was always, 
" Which is him ? " The grammar was faulty, maybe, but we 
could not know, then, that it would go into a book some day. 
As long as everything went smoothly, the overland driver was 
well enough situated, but if a fellow driver got sick suddenly 
it made trouble, for the coach must go on, and so the poten- 
tate who was about to climb down and take a luxurious rest 
after his long night's siege in the midst of wind and rain and 
darkness, had to stay where he was and do the sick man's 
work. Once, in the Rocky Mountains, when I found a driver 
sound asleep on the box, and the mules going at the usual 
break-neck pace, the conductor said never mind him, there was 
no danger, and he was doing double duty — had driven seventy- 
five miles on one coach, and was now going back over it on 
this without rest or sleep. A hundred and fifty miles of hold- 
ing back of six vindictive mules and keeping them from 
climbing the trees! It sounds incredible, but I remember 
the statement well enough. 

The station-keepers, hostlers, etc., were low, rough charac- 
ters, a6 already described ; and from western Nebraska to 
Nevada a considerable sprinkling of them might be fairly set 
down as outlaws — fugitives from justice, criminals whose best 
security was a section of country which was without law and 
without even the pretence of it. When the " division-agent " 



AN OVERLAND SCHOOL. 



5T 



issued an order to one of these parties he did it with the full 
understanding that he might have to enforce it with a navy 
six-shooter, and so he always went " fixed " to make things go 
along smoothly. Now and then a division-agent was really 
obliged to shoot a hostler through the head to teach him some 




THE SUPERINTENDENT AS A TEACHER. 

simple matter that he could have taught him with a club if hi* 
circumstances and surroundings had been different. But they 
were snappy, able men, those division-agents, and when they 
tried to teach a subordinate anything, that subordinate gener- 
ally " got it through his head." 

A great portion of this vast machinery — these hundreds of 
men and coaches, and thousands of mules and horses — was in 
the hands of Mr. Ben Holliday. All the western half of the 
business was in his hands. This reminds me of an incident of 
Palestine travel which is pertinent here, and so I will transfer 
it just in the language in which I find it set down in my 
Holy Land note-book : 



No doubt everybody has heard of Ben Holliday — a man of prodigious 
energy, who used to send mails and passengers flying across the continent 



58 



YOUNG AMERICA AT JERICHO. 



in his overland stage-coaches like a very whirlwind — two thousand long 
miles in fifteen days and a half, by the watch ! But this fragment of his- 
tory is not about Ben Holliday, but about a young New York boy by the 
name of Jack, who traveled with our small party of pilgrims in the Holy 
Land (and who had traveled to California in Mr. Holliday's overland coaches 
three years before, and had by no means forgotten it or lost his gushing ad- 
miration of Mr. H.) Aged nineteen. Jack was a good boy — a good-hearted 
and always well-meaning boy, who had been reared in the city of New 
York, and although he was bright and knew a great many useful things, 
his Scriptural education had been a good deal neglected — to such a degree, 
indeed, that all Holy Land history was fresh and new to him, and all Bible 




JACK AND THE ELDERLY PILGRIM. 

names mysteries that had never disturbed his virgin ear. Also in our party 
•was an elderly pilgrim who was the reverse of Jack, in that he was learned 
m the Scriptures and an enthusiast concerning them. He was our encyclo- 
pedia, and we were never tired of listening to his speeches, nor he of making 
them. He never passed a celebrated locality, from Bashan to Bethlehem, 
without illuminating it with an oration. One day, when camped near the 
ruins of Jericho, he burst forth with something like this : 

" Jack, do you see that range of mountains over yonder that bounds the 
Jordan valley ? The mountains of Moab, Jack ! Think of it, my boy — the 



THOUGHTLESS COMPARISONS OF JACK. 59 

actual mountains of Moab — renowned in Scripture history ! We are 
actually standing face to face with, those illustrious crags and peaks — and 
for all we know " [dropping his voice impressively], " our eyes may be 
resting at this very moment upon the spot where lies the mysterious 
grave of Moses ! Think of it, Jack ! " 

" Moses who f " (falling inflection). 

" Moses who! Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself — you ought to 
be ashamed of such criminal ignorance. Why, Moses, the great guide, sol- 
dier, poet, lawgiver of ancient Israel ! Jack, from this spot where we stand, 
to Egypt, stretches a fearful desert three hundred miles in extent — and 
across that desert that wonderful man brought the children of Israel ! — 
guiding them with unfailing sagacity for forty years over the sandy desola- 
tion and among the obstructing rocks and hills, and landed them at last, safe 
and sound, with insight of this very spot ; and where we now stand they 
entered the Promised Land with anthems of rejoicing ! It was a wonderful, 
wonderful thing to do, Jack ! Think of it ! " 

" Forty years ? Only three hundred miles f Humph ! Ben Holliday 
would have fetched them through in thirty-six hours ! " 

The boy meant no harm. He did not know that he had said anything 
that was wrong or irreverent. And so no one scolded him or felt offended 
with him — and nobody could but some ungenerous spirit incapable of 
excusing the heedless blunders of a boy. 

At noon on the fifth day out, we arrived at the " Crossing 
of the South Platte," alias " Julesburg," alias " Overland 
City," four hundred and seventy miles from St. Joseph — the 
strangest, quaintest, funniest frontier town that our untraveled 
eyes had ever stared at and been astonished with. 



CHAPTER VII. 

IT did seem strange enough to see a town again after what 
appeared to ns such a long acquaintance with deep, still, 
almost lifeless and houseless solitude ! We tumbled out into the 
busy street feeling like meteoric people crumbled off the corner 
of some other world, and wakened up suddenly in this. For an 
hour we took as much interest in Overland City as if we had 
never seen a town before. The reason we had an hour to spare 
was because we had to change our stage (for a less sumptuous 
affair, called a " mud- wagon ") and transfer our freight of mails. 
Presently we got under way again. We came to the 
shallow, yellow, muddy South Platte, with its low banks and 
its scattering flat sand-bars and pigmy islands — a melancholy 
stream straggling through the centre of the enormous flat 
plain, and only saved from being impossible to find with the 
naked eye by its sentinel rank of scattering trees standing on 
either bank. The Platte was " up," they said — which made 
me wish I could see it when it was down, if it could look any 
sicker and sorrier. They said it was a dangerous stream to 
cross, now, because its quicksands were liable to swallow up 
horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was made to ford 
it. But the mails had to go, and we made the attempt. Once 
or twice in midstream the wheels sunk into the yielding sands 
so threateningly that we half believed we had dreaded and 
avoided the sea all our lives to be shipwrecked in a " mud- 
wagon " in the middle of a desert at last. But we dragged 
through and sped away toward the setting sun. 



A WONDERFUL BUFFALO HUNT. 



61 



Next morning, just before dawn, when about five hundred 

and fifty miles from St. Joseph, 
our mud-wagon broke down. 
We were to be delayed five or 
six hours, and therefore we 
took horses, by invitation, and 
joined a party who were just 
starting on a buffalo hunt. It 
was noble sport galloping over 
the plain in the dewy fresh- 
ness of the morning, but our 
part of the hunt ended in 
disaster and disgrace, for a 
wounded buffalo bull chased 
the passenger Bemis nearly 
two miles, and then he forsook 
his horse and took to a lone 
tree. He was very sullen 
about the matter for some 
twenty-four hours, but at last 
he began to soften little by lit- 
tle, and finally he said : 

"Well, it was not funny, 
and there was no sense in those 
gawks making themselves so 
facetious over it. I tell you 
I was angry in earnest for 
awhile. I should have shot 
that long gangly lubber they 
called Hank, if I could have 
done it without crippling six 
or seven other people — but of 
course I couldn't, the old ' Al- 
len's' so confounded compre- 
hensive. I wish those loafers 
had been up in the tree ; they 
wouldn't have wanted to laugh so. If I had had a horse 




62 



B.EMIS'S VERSION OF IT. 



worth a cent — but no, the minnte he saw that buffalo bull 
wheel on him and give a bellow, he raised straight up in the 
air and stood on his heels. The saddle began to slip, and I 
took him round the neck and laid close to him, and began 
to pray. Then he came down and stood up on the other 
end awhile, and the bull actually stopped pawing sand and 
bellowing to contemplate the inhuman spectacle. Then the 




AN INHUMAN SPECTACLE. 



b ill made a pass at him and uttered a bellow that sounded 
perfectly frightful, it was so close to me, and that seemed 
to literally prostrate my horse's reason, and make a raving 
distracted maniac of him, and I wish I may die if he didn't 
stand on his head for a quarter of a minute and shed tears. 
He was absolutely out of his mind — he was, as sure as truth 
itself, and he really didn't know what he was doing. Then 
the bull came charging at us, and my horse dropped down 
on all fours and took a fresh start— and then for the next 









AN IMPROMTU CIRCUS. 



63 



ten minutes he would actually throw one hand-spring after 
another so fast that the bull began to get unsettled, too, and 
didn't know where to start in — and so he stood there sneezing, 
and shovelling dust over his back, and bellowing every now 
and then, and thinking he had got a fifteen-hundred dollar 
circus horse for breakfast, certain. Well, I was first out on 
his neck — the horse's, not the bull's — and then underneath, 
and next on his rump, and sometimes head up, and sometimes 
heels — but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful to be rip- 
ping and tearing and carrying on so in the presence of death, 
as you might say. Pretty soon the bull made a snatch for us 
and brought away some of my horse's tail (I suppose, but do 
not know, being pretty busy at the time), but something made 
him hungry for solitude and suggested to him to get up and 
hunt for it. And then you ought to have seen that spider- 
legged old skeleton go ! and you ought to have seen the bull 




A NEW DEPARTURE. 



eat out ifter him, too — head down, tongue out, tail up, bellow- 
ing like everything, and actually mowing down the weeds, and 
tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like a whirl- 
wind ! By George, it was a hot race ! I and the saddle were 
back on the rump, and I had the bridle in my teeth and hold- 



64 HAIRBREADTH ESCAPE. 

ing on to the pommel with both hands. First we left the 
dogs behind ; then we passed a jackass rabbit ; then we over- 
took a cayote, and were gaining on an antelope when the 
rotten girth let go and threw me about thirty yards off to the 
left, and as the saddle went down over the horse's rump he 
gave it a lift with his heels that sent it more than four hun- 
dred yards np in the air, I wish I may die in a minute if he 
didn't. I fell at the foot of the only solitary tree there was 
in nine counties adjacent (as any creature could see with the 
naked eye), and the next second I had hold of the bark with 
four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next second after that 
I was astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck in 
a way that made my breath smell of brimstone. I had the 
bull, now, if he did not think of one thing. But that one 
thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very seriously. There was a 
possibility that the bull might not think of it, but there were 
greater chances that he would. I made up my mind what I 
would do in case he did. It was a little over forty feet to 
the ground from where I sat. I cautiously unwound the 
lariat from the pommel of my saddle — " 

" Your saddle f Did you take your saddle up in the tree 
with you ? " 

" Take it up in the tree with me ? Why, how you talk. 
Of course I didn't. No man could do that. It fell in the 
tree when it came down." 

" Oh— exactly." 

" Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened one end 
of it to the limb. It was the very best green raw-hide, and 
capable of sustaining tons. I made a slip-noose in the other 
end, and then hung it down to see the length. It reached 
down twenty-two feet — half way to the ground. I then 
loaded every barrel of the Allen with a double charge. I felt 
satisfied. I said to myself, if he never thinks of that one 
thing that I dread, all right — but if he does, all right any- 
how — I am fixed for him. But don't you know that the very 
thing a man dreads is the thing that always happens ? Indeed 
'it is so. I watched the bull, now, with anxiety — anxiety 






A PLAUSIBLE STORY. 



65 



which no one can conceive of who has not been in such a 
situation and felt that at any moment death might come. 
Presently a thought came into the bull's eye. I knew it ! said 
I — if my nerve fails now, I am lost. Sure enough, it was 
just as I had dreaded, he started in to climb the tree — " 

"What, the . v 

"bull?" 

" Of course — 
who else ? " 

"But a bull 
can't climb a tree." 

"He can't, 
can't he ? Since 
you know so much 
about it, did you 
ever see a bull 
try?" 

" No ! I never 
dreamt of such a. 
thing." 

"Well, then, 
what is the use 
of your talking 
that way, then? 
Because you never 
saw a thing done, 
is that any reason 
why it can't be 
done ? " 

"Well, all 
right — go on. 
What did you 
do?" 

"The bull 

started up, and got along well for about ten feet, then slipped 
and slid back. I breathed easier. He tried it again — got 
5+ 




SUSPENDED OPERATIONS. 



66 UNDOUBTED PROOFS. 

up a little higher — slipped again. But he came at it once 
more, and this time he was careful. He got gradually 
higher and higher, and my spirits went down more and 
more. Up he came — an inch at a time — with his eyes 
hot, and his tongue hanging out. Higher and higher — 
hitched his foot over the stump of a limb, and looked up, as 
much as to say, 'You are my meat, friend.' Up again — 
higher and higher, and getting more excited the closer he got. 
He was within ten feet of me ! I took a long breath, — and 
then said I, 'It is now or never.' I had the coil of the 
lariat all ready ; I paid it out slowly, till it hung right over 
his head ; all of a sudden I let go of the slack, and the slip- 
noose fell fairly round his neck ! Quicker than lightning I 
out with the Allen and let him have it in the face. It was an 
awful roar, and must have scared the bull out of his senses. 
When the smoke cleared away, there he was, dangling in the 
air, twenty foot from the ground, and going out of one con- 
vulsion into another faster than you could count! I didn't 
stop to count, anyhow — I shinned down the tree and shot for 
home." 

" Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated it % " 

" I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death of a dog 
if it isn't." 

" Well, we can't refuse to believe it, and we don't. But 
if there were some proofs — " 

" Proofs ! Did I bring back my lariat ? " 

"No." 

" Did I bring back my horse ? " 

"No." 

" Did you ever see the bull again ? " 

"No."' 

"Well, then, what more do you want? I never saw any- 
body as particular as you are about a little thing like that." 

I made up my mind that if this man was not a liar he only 
missed it by the skin of his teeth. This episode reminds me 
of an incident of my brief sojourn in Siam, years afterward. 
The European citizens of a town in the neighborhood of Bang- 






HOW WE "DRAWED HIM OUT." 67 

kok had a prodigy among them by the name of Eckert, an 
Englishman — a person famous for the number, ingenuity and 
imposing magnitude of his lies. They were always repeating 
his most celebrated falsehoods, and always trying to " draw 
him out " before strangers ; but they seldom succeeded. Twice 
he was invited to the house where I was visiting, but nothing 
could seduce him into a specimen lie. One day a planter 
named Bascom, an influential man, and a proud and sometimes 
irascible one, invited me to ride over with him and call on 
Eckert. As we jogged along, said he : 

" Now, do you know where the fault lies ? It lies in putting 
Eckert on his guard. The minute the boys go to pumping at 
Eckert he knows perfectly well what they are after, and of 
course he shuts up his shell. Anybody might know he would. 
But when we get there, we must play him finer than that. 
Let him shape the conversation to suit himself — let him drop 
it or change it whenever he wants to. Let him see that no- 
body is trying to draw him out. Just let him have his own 
way. He will soon forget himself and begin to grind out lies 
like a mill. Don't get impatient — just keep quiet, and let me 
play him. I will make him lie. It does seem to me that the 
boys must be blind to overlook such an obvious and simple 
trick as that." 

Eckert received us heartily — a pleasant-spoken, gentle- 
mannered creature. We sat in the veranda an hour, sipping 
English ale, and talking about the king, and the sacred white 
elephant, the Sleeping Idol, and all manner of things ; and I 
noticed that my comrade never led the conversation himself 
or shaped it, but simply followed Eckert's lead, and betrayed 
no solicitude and no anxiety about anything. The effect was 
shortly perceptible. Eckert began to grow communicative; 
he grew more and more at his ease, and more and more talka- 
tive and sociable. Another hour passed in the same way, and 
then all of a sudden Eckert said : 

" Oh? by the way ! I came near forgetting. I have got a 
thing here to astonish you. Such a thing as neither you nor 
any other man ever heard of— I've got a cat that will eat cocoa- 



68 



THE CAT THAT EAT COCOANUT. 



nut ! Common green cocoanut — and not only eat the meat, 
but drink the- milk. It is so — I'll swear to it." 

A quick glance from Bascom — a glance that I under- 
stood — then : 

"Why, bless my soul, I never heard of such a thing. 
Man, it is impossible." 

" I knew you would say it. I'll fetch the cat." 

He went in the house. Bascom said : 

" There — what did I tell you % Now, that is the way to 
handle Eckert. You see, I have petted him along patiently, 
and put his suspicions to sleep. I am glad we came. You 
tell the boys about it when you go back. Cat eat a cocoanut 
— oh, my ! Now, that is just his way, exactly — he will tell the 
absurdest lie, and trust to luck to get out of it again. Cat eat 
a cocoanut — the innocent fool ! " 




A WONDEKi'UL, LIE. 



Eckert approached with his cat, sure enough. 

Bascom smiled. Said he : 

" I'll hold the cat — you bring a cocoanut." 



TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION. 



69 



Eckert split one open, and chopped up some pieces. Bas- 
eom smuggled a wink to me, and proffered a slice of the fruit 
to puss. She snatched it, swallowed it ravenously, and asked 
for more ! 

We rode our two miles in silence, and wide apart. At 
least I was silent, though Bascom cuffed his horse and cursed 
him a good deal, notwithstanding the horse was behaving well 
enough. When I branched off homeward, Bascom said : 

" Keep the horse till morning. And — you need not speak 
of this foolishness to the boys." 




CHAPTEE VIII. 

TIN" a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our 
-■- necks and watching for the "pony-rider" — the fleet mes- 
senger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacra- 
mento, carrying letters nineteen hundred miles in eight days ! 
Think of that for perishable horse and human flesh and blood 
to do ! The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a man, brim- 
ful of spirit and endurance. No matter what time of the 
day or night his watch came on, and no matter whether it was 
winter or summer, raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting, or 
whether his " beat " was a level straight road or a crazy trail 
over mountain crags and precipices, or whether it led through 
peaceful regions or regions that swarmed with hostile Indians, 
he must be always ready to leap into the saddle and be off like 
the wind ! There was no idling-time for a pony-rider on 
duty. He rode fifty miles without stopping, by daylight, 
moonlight, starlight, or through the blackness of darkness — 
just as it happened. He rode a splendid horse that was born 
for a racer and fed and lodged like a gentleman ; kept him 
at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then, as he came crash- 
ing up to the station where stood two men holding fast a fresh, 
impatient steed, the transfer of rider and mail-bag was made 
in the twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair and 
were out of sight before the spectator could get hardly the 
ghost of a look. Both rider and horse went " flying light." 
The rider's dress was thin, and fitted close ; he wore a " round- 
about," and a skull-cap, and tucked his pantaloons into his 



THE PONY EXPRESS. 



71 




IIERE HE COMES. 



boot-tops like a race-rider. He carried no arms — he carried 
nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even the post- 
age on his literary freight was worth five dollars a letter. He 
got but little frivo- 
lous correspondence 
to carry — his bag 
had business letters 
in it, mostly. His 
horse was stripped 
of all unnecessary 
weight, too. He 
wore a little wafer of a racing-sad 
die, and no visible blanket. He 
wore light shoes, or none at all. 
The little nat v mail-pockets strap- 
ped under the rider's thighs would each hold about the bulk 
of a child's primer. They held many and many an important 
business chapter and newspaper letter, but these were written 
on paper as airy and thin as gold-leaf, nearly, and thus bulk 
and weight were economized. The stage-coach traveled about 
a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five miles a day (twenty- 
four hours), the pony-rider about two hundred and fifty. There 
were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night 
and day, stretching in a long, scattering procession from Mis- 
souri to California, forty flying eastward, and forty toward the 
west, and among them making four hundred gallant horses 
earn a stirring livelihood and see a deal of scenery every single 
day in the year. 

We had had a consuming desire, from the beginning, to 
see a pony-rider, but somehow or other all that passed us and 
all that met us managed to streak by in the night, and so we 
heard only a whiz and a hail, and the swift phantom of the 
desert was gone before we could get our heads out of the win- 
dows. But now we were expecting one along every moment, 
and would see him in broad daylight. Presently the driver 
exclaims : 

" Here he comes ! " 

Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained 



72 



GENUINE ALKALI WATER. 




CHANGING HORSES. 



wider. Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a 
black speck appears against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. 
Well, I should think so ! In a second or two it becomes a horse 

and rider, rising 
and falling, ris- 
ing and falling — 
sweeping toward 
us nearer and near- 
er — growing more 
and more distinct, 
more and more 
sharply denned — 
nearer and still 
nearer, and the 
nutter of the hoofs 
comes faintly to the ear — another instant a whoop and a hur- 
rah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider's hand, but no 
reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and 
go winging away like a belated fragment of a storm ! 

So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that 
but for the flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on 
a mail-sack after the vision had flashed by and disappeared, we 
might have doubted whether we had seen any actual horse and 
man at all, maybe. 

We rattled through Scott's Bluffs Pass, by and by. It was 
along here somewhere that we first came across genuine and 
unmistakable alkali water in the road, and we cordially hailed 
it as a first-class curiosity, and a thing to be mentioned with 
eclat in letters to the ignorant at home. This water gave the 
road a soajvy appearance, and in many places the ground looked 
as if it had been whitewashed. I think the strange alkali 
water excited us as much as any wonder we had come upon 
yet, and I know we felt very complacent and conceited, and 
better satisfied with life after we had added it to our list of 
things which we had seen and some other people had not. In 
a small way we were the same sort of simpletons as those who 
climb unnecessarily the perilous peaks of Mont Blanc and 



A MAGNIFICENT RIDE. 



73 



the Matterhorn, and derive no pleasure from it except the re- 
flection that it isn't a common experience. But once in a 
while one of those parties trips and comes darting down the 
long mountain-crags in a sitting posture, making the crusted 
snow smoke behind him, flitting from bench to bench, and 
from terrace to terrace, jarring the earth where he strikes, and 
still glancing and flitting on again, sticking an iceberg into 
himself every now and then, and tearing his clothes, snatching 
at things to save himself, taking hold of trees and fetching 
them along with him, roots and all, starting little rocks now 
and then, then big boulders, then acres of ice and snow and 
patchesofforestjgath- 
ering and still gath- 
ering as he goes, 
adding and still add- 
ing to his massed and 
sweeping grandeur as 
he nears a three thou- 
sand-foot precipice, 
till at last he waves 
his hat magnificently 
and rides into eter- 
nity on the back of a 
raging and tossing 
avalanche ! 

This is all very 
fine, but let us not be riding the avalanche. 

carried away by excitement, but ask calmly, how does this per- 
son feel about it in his cooler moments next day, with six or 
seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on top of him % 

We crossed the sand hills near the scene of the Indian 
mail robbery and massacre of 1856, wherein the driver and 
conductor perished, and also all the passengers but one, it was 
supposed ; but this must have been a mistake, for at different 
times afterward on the Pacific coast I was personally ac- 
quainted with a hundred and thirty-three or four people who 
were wounded during that massacre, and barely escaped with 




74 AN INDIAN MASSACRE. 

their Eves. There was no doubt of the truth of it — I had it 
from their own lips. One of these parties told me that he 
kept coming across arrow-heads in his system for nearly seven 
years after the massacre ; and another of them told me that he 
was stuck so literally full of arrows that after the Indians 
were gone and he could raise up and examine himself, he 
could not restrain his tears, for his clothes were completely 
ruined. 

The most trustworthy tradition avers, however, that only 
one man, a person named Babbitt, survived the massacre, and 
he was desperately wounded. He dragged himself on his 
hands and knee (for one leg was broken) to a station several 
miles away. He did it during portions of two nights, lying 
concealed one day and part of another, and for more than 
forty hours suffering unimaginable anguish from hunger, thirst 
and bodily pain. The Indians robbed the coach of everything 
it contained, including quite an amount of treasure. 



OHAPTEE IX. 

TTTE passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on the seventh 
V * morning out we found ourselves in the Black Hills, 
with Laramie Peak at our elbow (apparently) looming vast 
and solitary — a deep, dark, rich indigo blue in hue, so por- 
tentously did the old colossus frown under his beetling 
brows of storm-cloud. He was thirty or forty miles away, in 
reality, but he only seemed removed a little beyond the low 
ridge at our right. We breakfasted at Horse-Shoe Station, 
six hundred and seventy-six miles out from St. Joseph. We 
had now reached a hostile Indian country, and during the 
afternoon we passed Laparelle Station, and enjoyed great dis- 
comfort all the time we were in the neighborhood, being 
aware that many of the trees we dashed by at arm's length 
concealed a lurking Indian or two. During the preceding 
night an ambushed savage had sent a bullet through the pony- 
rider's jacket, but he had ridden on, just the same, because 
pony-riders were not allowed to stop and inquire into such 
things except when killed. As long as they had life enough 
left in them they had to stick to the horse and ride, even if 
the Indians had been waiting for them a week, and were en- 
tirely out of patience. About two hours and a half before we 
arrived at Laparelle Station, the keeper in charge of it had 
fired four times at an Indian, but he said with an injured air 
that the Indian had " skipped around so's to spile everything 
^— and ammunition's blamed skurse, too." The most natural 



76 



AMONG THE INDIANS, 




inference conveyed by his manner of speaking was, that in 
" skipping around," the Indian had taken an unfair advantage. 

The coach we were 
in had a neat hole 
through its front — 
a reminiscence of 
its last trip through 
this region. The 
bullet that made 
it wounded the 
driver slightly, but 
he did not mind it 
much. He said the 
place to keep a man 
" huffy " was down 
on the Southern 
Overland, among 
the Apaches, be- 
fore the company 
moved the stage 
line up on the northern route. He said the Apaches used to 
annoy him all the time down there, and that he came as near 
as anything to starving to death in the midst of abundance, 
because they kept him so leaky with bullet holes that he 
" couldn't hold his vittles." This person's statement were 
not generally believed. 

We shut the blinds down very tightly that first night in 
the hostile Indian country, and lay on our arms. We slept 
on them some, but most of the time we only lay on them. 
We did not talk much, but kept quiet and listened. It was 
an inky-black night, and occasionally rainy. We were among 
woods and rocks, hills and gorges — so shut in, in fact, that 
when we peeped through a chink in a curtain, we could dis- 
cern nothing. The driver and conductor on top were still, 
too, or only spoke at long intervals, in low tones, as is the 
way of men in the midst of invisible dangers. We listened 
to rain-drops pattering on the roof; and the grinding of the 



INDIAN COUNTRY. 



A DARK DEED. 77 

wheels through the muddy gravel ; and the low wailing of the 
wind ; and all the time we had that absurd sense upon us, in- 
separable from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle, the 
sense of remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstand- 
ing the jolting and swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of 
the horses, and the grinding of the wheels. We listened a 
long time, with intent faculties and bated breath ; every time 
one of us would relax, and draw a long sigh of relief and 
start to say something, a comrade would be sure to utter a 
sudden " Hark ! " and instantly the experimenter was rigid 
and listening again. So the tiresome minutes and decades of 
minutes dragged away, until at last our tense forms filmed 
over with a dulled consciousness, and we slept, if one might 
call such a condition by so strong a name — for it was a sleep 
set with a hair-trigger. It was a sleep seething and teeming 
with a weird and distressful confusion of shreds and fag-ends 
of dreams — a sleep that was a chaos. Presently, dreams and 
sleep and the sullen hush of the night were startled by a ring- 
ing report, and cloven by such a long, wild, agonizing shriek ! 
Then we heard — ten steps from the stage — 

" Help ! help ! help ! " [It was our driver's voice.] 

" Kill him ! Kill him like a dog ! " 

" I'm being murdered ! Will no man lend me a pistol \ " 

" Look out ! head him off ! head him off ! " 

[Two pistol shots ; a confusion of voices and the trampling 
of many feet, as if a crowd were closing and surging together 
around some object ; several heavy, dull blows, as with a club ; 
a voice that said appealingly, " Don't, gentlemen, please don't 
— I'm a dead man ! " Then a fainter groan, and another blow, 
and away sped the stage into the darkness, and left the grisly 
mystery behind us.] 

What a startle it was ! Eight seconds would amply cover 
the time it occupied — maybe even five would do it. We 
only had time to plunge at a curtain and unbuckle and unbut- 
ton part of it in an awkward and hindering flurry, when our 
whip cracked sharply overhead, and we went rumbling and 
thundering away, down a mountain " grade. " 



7S POOR DISCRETION AND FATAL RESULTS. 

"We fed on that mystery the rest of the night — what was 
left of it, for it was waning fast. It had to remain a present 
mystery, for all we could get from the conductor in answer to 
our hails was something that sounded, through the clatter of 
the wheels, like " Tell you in the morning ! " 

So we lit our pipes and opened the corner of a curtain for a 
chimney, and lay there in the dark, listening to each other's 
story of how he first felt and how many thousand Indians he 
first thought had hurled themselves upon us, and what his 
remembrance of the subsequent sounds was, and the order of 
their occurrence. And we theorized, too, but there was never 
a theory that would account for our driver's voice being out 
there, nor yet account for his Indian murderers talking such 
good English, if they were Indians. 

So we chatted and smoked the rest of the night comfort- 
ably away, our boding anxiety being somehow marvelously 
dissipated by the real presence of something to be anxious 
about. 

"We never did get much satisfaction about that dark occur- 
rence. All that we could make out of the odds and ends of 
the information we gathered in the morning, was that the 
disturbance occurred at a station; that we changed drivers 
there, and that the driver that got off there had been talking 
roughly about some of the outlaws that infested the region 
(" for there wasn't a man around there but had a price on his 
head and didn't dare show himself in the settlements," the 
conductor said) ; he had talked roughly about these characters, 
and ought to have " drove up there with his pistol cocked and 
ready on the seat alongside of him, and begun business him- 
self, because any softy would know they would be laying for 
him." 

That was all we could gather, and we could see that nei- 
ther the conductor nor the new driver were much concerned 
about the matter. They plainly had little respect for a man who 
would deliver offensive opinions of people and then be so sim- 
ple as to come into their presence unprepared to " back his judg- 
ment," as they pleasantly phrased the killing of any fellow-being 



BLOODY, DANGEROUS, YET VALUABLE CITIZEN. 79 

who did not like said opinions. And likewise they plainly had a 
contempt for the man's poor discretion in venturing to rouse 
the wrath of such utterly reckless wild beasts as those outlaws 
— and the conductor added : 

" I tell you it's as much as Slade himself wants to do ! " 
This remark created an entire revolution in my curiosity. 
I cared nothing now about the Indians, and even lost interest 
in the murdered driver. There was such magic in that name, 
Slade ! Day or night, now, I stood always ready to drop any 
subject in hand, to listen to something new about Slade and 
his ghastly exploits. Even before we got to Overland City, 
we had begun to hear about Slade and his " division " (for he 
was a " division-agent ") on the Overland ; and from the hour 
we had left Overland City we had heard drivers and conduc- 
tors talk about only three things — " Californy," the Nevada 
silver mines, and this desperado Slade. And a deal the most 
of the talk was about Slade. We had gradually come to have 
a realizing sense of the fact that Slade was a man whose heart 
and hands and soul were steeped in the blood of offenders 
against his dignity ; a man who awfully avenged all injuries, 
affronts, insults or slights, of whatever kind — on the spot if he 
could, years afterward if lack of earlier opportunity compelled 
it ; a man whose hate tortured him day and night till ven- 
geance appeased it — and not an ordinary vengeance either, 
but his enemy's absolute death — nothing less ; a man whose 
face would light up with a terrible joy when he surprised a 
foe and had him at a disadvantage. A high and efficient 
servant of the Overland, an outlaw among outlaws and yet 
their relentless scourge, Slade was at once the most bloody, 
the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that inhab- 
ited the savage fastnesses of the mountains. 



OHAPTEE X. 

EEALLY and truly, two thirds of the talk of drivers and 
conductors had been about this man Slade, ever since 
the day before we reached Julesburg. In order that the east- 
ern reader may have a clear conception of what a Rocky Moun- 
tain desperado is, in his highest state of development, I will 
reduce all this mass of overland gossip to one straightforward 
narrative, and present it in the following shape : 

Slade was born in Illinois, of good parentage. At about 
twenty-six years of age he killed a man in a quarrel and fled 
the country. At St. Joseph, Missouri, he joined one of the 
early California-bound emigrant trains, and was given the post 
of train-master. One day on the plains he had an angry dis- 
pute with one of his wagon-drivers, and both drew their 
revolvers. But the driver was the quicker artist, and had his 
weapon cocked first. So Slade said it was a pity to waste life 
on so small a matter, and proposed that the pistols be thrown 
on the ground and the quarrel settled by a fist-fight. The 
unsuspecting driver agreed, and threw down his pistol — where- 
upon Slade laughed at his simplicity, and shot him dead ! 

He made his escape, and lived a wild life for awhile, divid- 
ing his time between fighting Indians and avoiding an Illinois 
sheriff, who had been sent to arrest him for his first murder. 
It is said that in one Indian battle he killed three savages with 
his own hand, and afterward cut their ears off* and sent them, 
with his compliments, to the chief of the tribe. 

Slade soon gained a name for fearless resolution, and this 



SLADE AS DIVISION-AGENT. 



81 



was sufficient merit to procure for him the important post of 
overland division-agent at Julesburg, in place of Mr. Jules, 
removed. For some time previously, the company's horses 
had been frequent- 
ly stolen, and the 
coaches delayed, by 
gangs of outlaws, 
who were wont to 
laugh at the idea of 
any man's having 
the temerity to re- 
sent such outrages. 
Slade resented them 
promptly. The out- 
laws soon found that 
the new agent was a 
man who did not 
fear anything that 
breathed the breath 
of life. He made 
short work of all 
offenders. The re- 
sult was that delays 
ceased, the compa- 
ny's property was let 
alone, and no matter 
what happened or 
who suffered, Slade's coaches w T ent through, every time! 
True, in order to bring about this wholesome change, Slade 
had to kill several men — some say three, others say four, and 
others six — but the world was the richer for their loss. The 
first prominent difficulty he had was with the ex-agent Jules, 
who bore the reputation of being a reckless and desperate 
man himself. Jules hated Slade for supplanting him, and a 
good fair occasion for a fight was all he was waiting for. By 
and by Slade dared to employ a man whom Jules had once 
discharged. Next, Slade seized a team of stage-horses which 

6t 




A PROPOSED FIST-FIGHT. 



82 SLADE AND JULES EXCHANGING COURTESIES. 



he accused Jules of having driven off and hidden somewhere 
for his own use. War was declared, and for a day or two the 
two men w T alked warily about the streets, seeking each other, 
Jules armed with a double-barreled shot gun, and Slade with 
his history-creating revolver. Finally, as Slade stepped into a 
store, Jules poured the contents of his gun into him from be- 
hind the door. 
Slade was 
pluck, and 
Jules got sev- 
eral bad pistol 
wounds in 
return. Then 
both men fell, 
and were car- 
ried to their 
re specti ve 
lodgings, both 
swearing that 
better aim 
should do deadlier work 
next time. Both were bed- 
ridden a long time, but Jules 
got on his feet first, and 
gathering his possessions to- 
gether, packed them on a 
couple of mules, and fled 
to the Rocky Mountains to 
gather strength in safety 
against the day of reckoning. 
For many months he was not seen or heard of, and was grad- 
ually dropped out of the remembrance of all save Slade him- 
self. But Slade was not the man to forget him. On the con- 
trary, common report said that Slade kept a reward standing 
for his capture, dead or alive ! 

After awhile, seeing that Slade's energetic administration 
had restored peace and order to one of the worst divisions of 




FROM BEHIND THE DOOR. 



SUMMARY JUSTICE EXECUTED. 83 

the road, the overland stage company transferred him to the 
Rocky Ridge division in the Rocky Mountains, to see if he 
could perform a like miracle there. It was the very paradise 
of outlaws and desperadoes. There was absolutely no sem- 
blance of law there. Yiolence was the rule. Force was the 
only recognized authority. The commonest misunderstandings 
were settled on the spot with the revolver or the knife. Mur- 
ders were done in open day, and with sparkling frequency, and 
nobody thought of inquiring into them. It was considered 
that the parties who did the killing had their private reasons 
for it ; for other people to meddle would have been looked 
upon as indelicate. After a murder, all that Rocky Mountain 
etiquette required of a spectator was, that he should help the 
gentleman bury his game — otherwise his churlishness would 
surely be remembered against him the first time he killed 
a man himself and needed a neighborly turn in interring 
him. 

Slade took up his residence sweetly and peacefully in the 
midst of this hive of horse-thieves and assassins, and the very 
first time one of them aired his insolent swaggerings in his 
presence he shot him dead ! He began a raid on the outlaws, 
and in a singularly short space of time he had completely 
stopped their depredations on the stage stock, recovered a large 
number of stolen horses, killed several of the worst despera- 
does of the district, and gained such a dread ascendancy over 
the rest that they respected him, admired him, feared him, 
obeyed him ! He wrought the same marvelous change in the 
ways of the community that had marked his administration at 
Overland City. He captured two men who had stolen over- 
land stock, and with his own hands he hanged them. He was 
supreme judge in his district, and he was jury and executioner 
likewise — and not only in the case of offences against his em- 
ployers, but against passing emigrants as well. On one occa- 
sion some emigrants had their stock lost or stolen, and told 
Slade, who chanced to visit their camp. With a single com- 
panion h« rode to a ranch, the owners of which he suspected, 



84 



ACTS OF CRUELTY PERPETRATED. 



and opening the door, commenced firing, killing three, and 



wounding the fourth. 



From a bloodthirstily interesting little Montana book * I 
take this paragraph : 






While on the road, Slade held absolute sway. He would ride down to 
a station, get into a quarrel, turn the house out of windows, and maltreat 
the occupants most cruelly. The unfortunates had no means of redress, and 




SLADE AS EXECUTIONER. 

-were compelled to recuperate as best they could. On one of these occasions, 
it is said he killed the father of the fine little half-breed boy Jemmy, whom 
he adopted, and who lived with his widow after his execution. Stories of 
Blade's hanging men, and of innumerable assaults, shootings, stabbings 
and beatings, in which he was a principal actor, form part of the legends 
of the stage line. As for minor quarrels and shootings, it is absolutely cer- 
tain that a minute history of Slade's life would be one long record of such 
practices. 



* " The Vigilantes of Montana," by Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale. 



A DOOMED WHISKY SELLER, 



85 



Slade was a matchless marksman with a navy revolver. 
The legends say that one morning at Rocky Ridge, when he was 
feeling comfortable, he saw a man approaching who had of- 
fended him some days before — observe the fine memory he 
had for matters like that — and, " Gentlemen," said Slade, 
drawing, " it is a good twenty-yard shot — I'll clip the third 
button on his coat ! " Which he did. The bystanders all 
admired it. And they all attended the funeral, too. 

On one occasion a man who kept a little whisky-shelf at 
the station did something which angered Slade — and went 
and made his will. A day or two afterward Slade came in 




AN UNPLEASANT ViiiU 



and called for some brandy. The man reached under the 
counter (ostensibly to get a bottle — possibly to get something 
else), but Slade smiled upon him that peculiarly bland and 
satisfied smile of his which the neighbors had long ago learned 
to recognize as a death-warrant in disguise, and told him to 



86 SLADE RELEASED BY HIS WIFE. 

"none of that! — pass out the high-priced article." So the 
poor bar-keeper had to turn his back and get the high-priced 
brandy from the shelf; and when he faced around again he 
was looking into the muzzle of Slade's pistol. " And the next 
instant," added my informant, impressively, " he was one of 
the deadest men that ever lived." 

The stage-drivers and conductors told us that sometimes 
Slade would leave a hated enemy wholly unmolested, un- 
noticed and unmentioned, for weeks together — had done it 
once or twice at any rate. And some said they believed he 
did it in order to lull the victims into unwatchfulness, so that 
he could get the advantage of them, and others said they be- 
lieved he saved up an enemy that way, just as a schoolboy 
saves up a cake, and made the pleasure go as far as it would 
by gloating over the anticipation. One of these cases was 
that of a Frenchman who had offended Slade. To the sur- 
prise of everybody Slade did not kill him on the spot, but let 
him alone for a considerable time. Finally, however, he went 
to the Frenchman's house very late one night, knocked, and 
when his enemy opened the door, shot him dead — pushed the 
corpse inside the door with his foot, set the house on fire and 
burned up the dead man, his widow and three children ! I 
heard this story from several different people, and they evi- 
dently believed what they were saying. It may be true, and 
it may not. " Give a dog a bad name," etc. 

Slade was captured, once, by a party of men who intended 
to lynch him. They disarmed him, and shut him up in a 
strong log-house, and placed a guard over him. He prevailed 
on his captors to send for his wife, so that he might have a last 
interview with her. She was a brave, loving, spirited woman. 
She jumped on a horse and rode for life and death. When 
she arrived they let her in without searching her, and before 
the door could be closed she whipped out a couple of revolvers, 
and she and her lord marched forth defying the party. And 
then, under a brisk fire, they mounted double and galloped 
away unharmed ! 

In the fulness of time Slade's myrmidons captured his 



SLADE CAPTURES AN OLD ENEMY. 87 

ancient enemy Jules, whom they found in a well-chosen 
hiding-place in the remote fastnesses of the mountains, gaining 
a precarious livelihood with his rifle. They brought him to 
Rocky Ridge, bound hand and foot, and deposited him in the 
middle of the cattle-yard with his back against a post. It is 
said that the pleasure that lit Slade's face when he heard of it 
was something fearful to contemplate. He examined his ene- 
my to see that he was securely tied, and then went to bed, 
content to wait till morning before enjoying the luxury of 
killing him. Jules spent the night in the cattle-yard, and it is 
a region where warm nights are never known. In the morn- 
ing Slade practised on him with his revolver, nipping the flesh 
here and there, and occasionally clipping off a flnger, while 
Jules begged him to kill him outright and put him out of his 
misery. Finally Slade reloaded, and walking up close to his 
victim, made some characteristic remarks and then dispatched 
him. The body lay there half a day, nobody venturing to 
touch it without orders, and then Slade detailed a party and 
assisted at the burial himself. But he first cut off the dead 
man's ears and put them in his vest pocket, where he carried 
them for some time with great satisfaction. That is the story 
as I have frequently heard it told and seen it in print in Cali- 
fornia newspapers. It is doubtless correct in all essential par- 
ticulars. 

In due time we rattled up to a stage-station, and sat down 
to breakfast with a half-savage, half-civilized company of 
armed and bearded mountaineers, ranchmen and station em- 
ployees. The most gentlemanly-appearing, quiet and affable 
officer we had yet found along the road in the Overland Com- 
pany's service was the person who sat at the head of the table, 
at my elbow. Never youth stared and shivered as I did when 
I heard them call him Slade ! 

Here was romance, and I sitting face to face with it ! — 
looking upon it — touching it — hobnobbing with it, as it were ! 
Here, right by my side, was the actual ogre who, in fights and 
brawls and various ways, had taken the lives of twenty-six 
human beings, or all men lied about him ! I suppose I was 



88 



SLADE AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE. 



the proudest stripling that ever traveled to see strange lands 
and wonderful people. 

He was so friendly and so gentle-spoken that I warmed to 
him in spite of his awful history. It was hardly possible to re- 
alize that this pleasant person was the pitiless scourge of the 
outlaws, the raw-head-and-bloody-bones the nursing mothers 
of the mountains terrified their children with. And to this day 
I can remember nothing remarkable about Slade except that 
his face was rather broad across the cheek bones, and that the 
cheek bones were low and the lips peculiarly thin and straight. 
But that was enough to leave something of an effect upon me, 
for since then I seldom see a face possessing those characteristics 
without fancying that the owner of it is a dangerous man. 
The coffee ran out. At least it was reduced to one tin- 
cup ful, and 
Slade was 
about to take 
it when he saw 
that my cup 
was e m p t y. 
He politely of- 
fered to fill it, 
but although 
I wanted it, 
I politely de- 
clined. I was 
afraid he had 
not killed any- 
body that 




morning, 



and 



UNAPPRECIATED POLITENESS. 



might be need- 
ing diversion. 
But still with 

firm politeness he insisted on filling my cup, and said I had 
traveled all night and better deserved it than he — and while 
he talked he placidly poured the fluid, to the last drop. I 
thanked him and drank it, but it gave me no comfort, for I 



A SATISFACTORY LEAVE-TAKING. 



89 



could not feel sure that he would not be sorry, presently, that 
he had given it away, and proceed to kill me to distract his 
thoughts from the loss. But nothing of the kind occurred. 
We left him with only twenty-six dead people to account 
for, and I felt a tranquil satisfaction in the thought that in 
so judiciously taking care of ISTo. 1 at that breakfast-table 
I had pleasantly escaped being No. 27. Slade came out to 
the coach and saw us oif, first ordering certain rearrangements 
of the mail-bags for our comfort, and then we took leave of 
him, satisfied that we should hear of him again, some day, and 
wondering in what connection. 




CHAPTEE XI. 

A1STD sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did 
hear of him again. News came to the Pacific coast 
that the Yigilance Committee in Montana (whither Slade had 
removed from Rocky Ridge) had hanged him. I find an 
account of the affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a 
paragraph from in the last chapter — " The Vigilantes of Mon- 
tana ; being a Reliable Account of the Capture, Trial and 
Execution of Henry Plummer's Notorious Road Agent Band : 
By Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, Yirginia City, M. T." Mr. 
Dimsdale's chapter is well worth reading, as a specimen of 
how the people of the frontier deal with criminals when the 
courts of law prove inefficient. Mr. Dimsdale makes two re- 
marks about Slade, both of which are accurately descriptive, 
and one of which is exceedingly picturesque : " Those who 
saw him in his natural state only, would pronounce him to be 
a kind husband, a most hospitable host and a courteous gentle- 
man ; on the contrary, those who met him when maddened 
with liquor and surrounded by a gang of armed roughs, would 
pronounce him a fiend incarnate." And this: a From Fort 
Kearney, west, he was feared a great deal more than the Al- 
vnighty" For compactness, simplicity and vigor of expres- 
sion, I will " back " that sentence against anything in literature. 
Mr. Dimsdale's narrative is as follows. In all places where 
italics occur, they are mine : 

After the execution of the five men on the 14th of January, the Vigi- 
lantes considered that their work was nearly ended. They had freed the 



SLADE IN MONTANA. 91 

country of highwaymen and murderers to a great extent, and they deter- 
mined that in the absence of the regular civil authority they would estab^ 
lish a People's Court where all offenders should be tried by judge and jury. 
This was the nearest approach to social order that the circumstances per- 
mitted, and, though strict legal authority was wanting, yet the people were 
firmly determined to maintain its efficiency, and to enforce its decrees. It 
may here be mentioned that the overt act which was the last round on the 
fatal ladder leading to the scaffold on which Slade perished, was the tearmg 
in pieces and stamping upon a writ of this court, followed by his arrest of 
the Judge, Alex. Davis, by authority of a presented Derringer, and with his 
own hands. 

J. A. Slade was himself, we have been informed, a Vigilante ; he openly 
boasted of it, and said he knew all that they knew. He was never accused, 
or even suspected, of either murder or robbery, committed in this Territory 
(the latter crime was never laid to his charge, in any place) ; but that he 
had killed several men in other localities was notorious, and his bad repu- 
tation in this respect was a most powerful argument in determining his 
fate, when he was finally arrested for the offence above mentioned. On 
returning from Milk River he became more and more addicted to drinking, 
until at last it was a common feat for him and his friends to " take the 
town." He and a couple of his dependents might often be seen on one 
horse, galloping through the streets, shouting and yelling, firing revolvers, 
etc. On many occasions he would ride his horse into stores, break up 
bars, toss the scales out of doors and use most insulting language to par- 
ties present. Just previous to the day of his arrest, he had given a fearful 
beating to one of his followers ; but such was his influence over them that 
the man wept bitterly at the gallows, and begged for his life with all his 
power. It had become quite common, when Slade was on a spree, for the 
shop-keepers and citizens to close the stores and put out all the lights ; being 
fearful of some outrage at his hands. For his wanton destruction of goods 
and furniture, he was always ready to pay, when sober, if he had money ; 
but there were not a few who regarded payment as small satisfaction for 
the outrage, and these men were his personal enemies. 

From time to time Slade received warnings from men that he well 
knew would not deceive him, of the certain end of his conduct. There 
was not a moment, for weeks previous to his arrest, in which the public 
did not expect to hear of some bloody outrage. The dread of his very 
name, and the presence of the armed band of hangers-on who followed him 
alone prevented a resistance which must certainly have ended in the instant 
murder or mutilation of the opposing party. 

Slade was frequently arrested by order of the court whose organization 
we have described, and had treated it with respect by paying one or two 
fines and promising to pay the rest when he had money ; but in the transac- 
tion that occurred at this crisis, he forgot even this caution, and goaded by 
passion and the hatred of restraint, he sprang into the embrace of death. 

Slade had been drunk and " cutting up " all night. He and his companions 



92 



IN CUSTODY OF THE "VIGILANTES 



had made the town a perfect hell. In the morning, J. M. Fox, the sheriff, 
met him, arrested him, took him into court and commenced reading a war- 
rant that he had for his arrest, by way of arraignment. He became uncon- 
trollably furious, and seizing the writ, he tore it up, threw it on the ground 




SLADE IN COURT. 



and stamped upon it. The clicking of the locks of his companions' revolv- 
ers was instantly heard, and a crisis was expected. The sheriff did not 
attempt his retention ; but being at least as prudent as he was valiant, he 
succumbed, leaving Slade the master of the situation and the conqueror 
and ruler of the courts, law and law-makers This was a declaration of 
war, and was so accepted. The Vigilance Committee now felt that the 
question of social order and the preponderance of the law-abiding citizens 
had then and there to be decided. They knew the character of Slade, and 
they were well aware that they must submit to his rule without murmur, 
or else that he must be dealt with in such fashion as would prevent his 
being able to wreak his vengeance on the committee, who could never have 
hoped to live in the Territory secure from outrage or death, and who could 



THE MINERS "ON BUSINESS." 93 

never leave it without encountering his friends, whom, his victory would 
have emboldened and stimulated to a pitch that would have rendered 
them reckless of consequences. The day previous he had ridden into 
Dorris's store, and on being requested to leave, he drew his revolver 
and threatened to kill the gentleman who spoke to him. Another saloon 
he had led his horse into, and buying a bottle of wine, he tried to make 
the animal drink it. This was not considered an uncommon performance, 
as he had often entered saloons and commenced firing at the lamps, caus- 
ing a wild stampede. 

A leading member of the committee met Slade, and informed him in the 
quiet, earnest manner of one who feels the importance of what he is saying : 

" Slade, get your horse at once, and go home, or there will be to pay." 

Slade started and took a long look, with his dark and piercing eyes, at the 
gentleman. " What do you mean ? " said he. " You have no right to ask 
me what I mean," was the quiet reply, " get your horse at once, and remem- 
ber what I tell you." After a short pause he promised to do so, and actually 
got into the saddle ; but, being still intoxicated, he began calling aloud to 
one after another of his friends, and at last seemed to have forgotten the 
warning he had received and became again uproarious, shouting the name 
of a well-known courtezan in company with those of two men whom he 
considered heads of the committee, as a sort of challenge ; perhaps, how- 
ever, as a simple act of bravado. It seems probable that the intimation of 
personal danger he had received had not been forgotten entirely ; though 
fatally for him, he took a foolish way of showing his remembrance of it. 
He sought out Alexander Davis, the Judge of the Court, and drawing a 
cocked Derringer, he presented it at his head, and told him that he should 
hold him as a hostage for his own safety. As the judge stood perfectly 
quiet, and offered no resistance to his captor, no further outrage followed on 
this score. Previous to this, on account of the critical state of affairs, the 
committee had met, and at last resolved to arrest him. His execution had 
not been agreed upon, and, at that time, would have been negatived, most 
assuredly. A messenger rode down to Nevada to inform the leading men 
of what was on hand, as it was desirable to show that there was a feeling 
of unanimity on the subject, all along the gulch. 

The miners turned out almost en masse, leaving their work and forming 
in solid column, about six hundred strong, armed to the teeth, they marched 
up to Virginia. The leader of the body well knew the temper of his men 
on the subject. He spurred on ahead of them, and hastily calling a meet- 
ing of the executive, he told them plainly that the miners meant " busi- 
ness," and that, if they came up, they would not stand in the street to be 
shot down by Slade's friends ; but that they would take him and hang him. 
The meeting was small, as the Virginia men were loath to act at all. This 
momentous announcement of the feeling of the Lower Town was made to 
a cluster of men, who were deliberating behind a wagon, at the rear of a 
store on Main street. 

The committee were most unwilling to proceed to extremities. All the 



94 TRIAL AND SENTENCE OF SLADE. 

duty they had ever performed seemed as nothing to the task before them ; 
but they had to decide, and that quickly. It was finally agreed that if the 
whole body of the miners were of the opinion that he should be hanged, 
that the committee left it in their hands to deal with him. Off, at hot 
speed, rode the leader of the Nevada men to join his command. 

Slade had found out what was intended, and the news sobered him in- 
stantly. He went into P. S. Pfouts' store, where Davis was, and apologized 
for his conduct, saying that he would take it all back. 

The head of the column now wheeled into Wallace street and marched up 
at quick time. Halting in front of the store, the executive officer of the com- 
mittee stepped forward and arrested Slade, who was at once informed of his 
doom, and inquiry was made as to whether he had any business to settle. 
Several parties spoke to him on the subject ; but to all such inquiries he 
turned a deaf ear, being entirely absorbed in the terrifying reflections on 
his own awful position. He never ceased his entreaties for life, and to see 
his dear wife. The unfortunate lady referred to, between whom and Slade 
there existed a warm affection, was at this time living at their ranch on the 
Madison. She was possessed of considerable personal attractions ; tall, 
well-formed, of graceful carriage, pleasing manners, and was, withal, an 
accomplished horsewoman. 

A messenger from Slade rode at full speed to inform her of her hus- 
band's arrest. In an instant she was in the saddle, and with all the energy 
that love and despair could lend to an ardent temperament and a strong 
physique, she urged her fleet charger over the twelve miles of rough and 
rocky ground that intervened between her and the object of her passionate 
devotion. 

Meanwhile a party of volunteers had made the necessary preparations 
for the execution, in the valley traversed by the branch. Beneath the site 
of Pfouts and Russell's stone building there was a corral, the gate-posts of 
which were strong and high. Across the top was laid a beam, to which 
the rope was fastened, and a dry -goods box served for the platform. To 
this place Slade was marched, surrounded by a guard, composing the best 
armed and most numerous force that has ever appeared in Montana Terri- 
tory. 

The doomed man had so exhausted himself by tears, prayers and lamen- 
tations, that he had scarcely strength left to stand under the fatal beam. 
He repeatedly exclaimed, " My God ! my God ! must I die ? Oh, my dear 
wife ! " 

On the return of the fatigue party, they encountered some friends of 
Slade, staunch and reliable citizens and members of the committee, but who 
were personally attached to the condemned. On hearing of his sentence, 
one of them, a stout-hearted man, pulled out his handkerchief and walked 
away, weeping like a child. Slade still begged to see his wife, most 
piteously, and it seemed hard to deny his request ; but the bloody conse- 
quences that were sure to follow the inevitable attempt at a rescue, that her 
presence and entreaties would have certainly incited, forbade the granting 



EXECUTION OF SLADE 



95 



of his request. Several gentlemen were sent for to see him, in his last mo- 
ments, one of whom (Judge Davis) made a short address to the people ; but 
in such low tones as to be inaudible, save to a few in his immediate vicinity. 
One of his friends, after exhausting his powers of entreaty, threw off his 
coat and declared that the prisoner could not be hanged until he himself 
was killed. A hundred guns were instantly leveled at him ; whereupon he 




a wife's lamentation. 



turned and fled ; but, being brought back, he was compelled to resume hia 
coat, and to give a promise of future peaceable demeanor. 

Scarcely a leading man in Virginia could be found, though numbers oi 
the citizens joined the ranks of the guard when the arrest was made. Al] 
lamented the stern necessity which dictated the execution. 

Everything being ready, the command was given, " Men, do your duty," 
and the box being instantly slipped from beneath his feet, he died almost 
instantaneously. 

The body was cut down and carried to the Virginia Hotel, where, in, a 
darkened room, it was scarcely laid out, when the unfortunate and bereaved 
companion of the deceased arrived, at headlong speed, to find that all was 
over, and that she was a widow. Her grief and heart-piercing cries were 
terrible evidences of the depth of her attachment for her lost husband, and 
a considerable period elapsed before she could regain the command of her 
excited feelings. 

There is something about the desperado-nature that is 
wholly unaccountable — at least it looks unaccountable. It is 
this. The true desperado is gifted with splendid courage, and 
yet he will take the most infamous advantage of his enemy ; 
armed and free, he will stand up before a host and fight until 



96 "WAS SLADE A COWARD." 

he is shot all to pieces, and yet when he is under the gallows 
and helpless he will cry and plead like a child. Words are 
cheap, and it is easy to call Slade a coward (all executed men 
who do not " die game " are promptly called cowards by unre- 
flecting people), and when we read of Slade that he " had so 
exhausted himself by tears, prayers and lamentations, that he 
had scarcely strength left to stand under the fatal beam," the 
disgraceful word suggests itself in a moment — yet in fre- 
quently defying and inviting the vengeance of banded Rocky 
Mountain cut-throats by shooting down their comrades and 
leaders, and never offering to hide or fly, Slade showed that he 
was a man of peerless bravery. ~No coward would dare that. 
Many a notorious coward, many a chicken-liver ed poltroon, 
coarse, brutal, degraded, has made his dying speech without a 
quaver in his voice and been swung into eternity with what 
looked liked the calmest fortitude, and so we are justified in 
believing, from the low intellect of such a creature, that it was 
not moral courage that enabled him to do it. Then, if mora) 
courage is not the requisite quality, what could it have been 
that this stout-hearted Slade lacked? — this bloody, desperate, 
kindly-mannered, urbane gentleman, who never hesitated to 
warn his most ruffianly enemies that he would kill them when- 
ever or wherever he came across them next ! I think it is a 
conundrum worth investigating. 



CHAPTER XII. 

JUST beyond the breakfast-station we overtook a Mormon 
emigrant train of thirty-three wagons; and tramping 
wearily along and driving their herd of loose cows, were doz- 
ens of coarse-clad and sad-looking men, women and children, 
who had walked as they were walking now, day after day for 
eight lingering weeks, and in that time had compassed the 
distance our stage had come in eight days and three hours— 
seven hundred and ninety-eight miles ! They were dusty and 
uncombed, hatJess, uonnetless and ragged, and they did look 
so tired ! 

After breakfast, we bathed in Horse Creek, a (previously) 
limpid, sparkling stream — an appreciated luxury, for it was 
very seldom that our furious coach halted long enough for an 
indulgence of that kind. We changed horses ten or twelve 
times in every twenty-four hours — changed mules, rather — 
six mules — and did it nearly every time in four minutes. It 
was lively work. As our coach rattled up to each station six 
harnessed mules stepped gayly from the stable; and in the 
twinkling of an eye, almost, the old team was out, and the 
new one in and we off and away again. 

During the afternoon we passed Sweetwater Creek, Inde- 
pendence Kock, Devil's Gate and the Devil's Gap. The latter 
were wild specimens of rugged scenery, and full of interest — • 
we were in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, now. And we 
also passed by " Alkali " or " Soda Lake," and we woke up to 
the fact that our journey had stretched a long way across the 
7+ " 



98 AN ENTIRE INHABITANT. 

world when the driver said that the Mormons often came 
there from Great Salt Lake City to haul away saleratus. He 
said that a few days gone by they had shoveled np enough 
pure saleratus from the ground (it was a dry lake) to 
load two wagons, and that when they got these two wagon- 
loads of a drug that cost them nothing, to Salt Lake, they 
could sell it for twenty-five cents a pound. 

In the night we sailed by a most notable curiosity, and one 
we had been hearing a good deal about for a day or two, and 
were suffering to see. This was what might be called a nat- 
ural ice-house. It was August, now, and sweltering weather 
in the daytime, yet at one of the stations the men could scrape 
the soil on the hill-side under the lee of a range of boulders, 
and at a depth of six inches cut out pure blocks of ice — hard, 
compactly frozen, and clear as crystal ! 

Toward dawn we got under way again, and presently as 
we sat with raised curtains enjoying our early-morning smoke 
and contemplating the first splendor of the rising sun as it 
swept down the long array of mountain peaks, flushing and 
gilding crag after crag and summit after summit, as if the 
invisible Creator reviewed his gray veterans and they saluted 
with a smile, we hove in sight of South Pass City. The hotel- 
keeper, the postmaster, the blacksmith, the mayor, the consta- 
ble, the city marshal and the principal citizen, and property 
holder, all came out and greeted us cheerily, and we gave him 
good day. He gave us a little Indian news, and a little Pocky 
Mountain news, and we gave him some Plains information 
in return. He then retired to his lonely grandeur and we 
climbed on up among the bristling peaks and the ragged clouds. 
South Pass City consisted of four log cabins, one of which was 
unfinished, and the gentleman with all those offices and titles 
was the chiefest of the ten citizens of the place. Think of hotel- 
keeper, postmaster, blacksmith, mayor, constable, city mar- 
shal and principal citizen all condensed into one person and 
erammed into one skin. Bemis said he was " a perfect Allen's 
revolver of dignities." And he said that if he were to die 
as postmaster, or as blacksmith, or as postmaster and blacksmith 



IN SIGHT OF ETERNAL SNOW. 



99 



both, the people might stand it ; but if he were to die all over, 

it would be a frightful loss to the community. 

Two miles beyond South Pass City we saw for the first 

time that myste- 
rious marvel which 
all Western un- 
traveled boys have 
heard of and fully 
believe in, but are 
sure to be astound- 
ed at when they 
see it with their 



H own eyes, never- 



theless — banks of 
snow in dead sum- 
mer time. We 
were now far up 
toward the sky,and 
knew all the time 
that we must pres- 
ently encounter 




THJS CONOJSNTKATED INHABITANT. 



lofty summits clad in the " eternal snow " which was so common- 
place a matter of mention in books, and yet when I did see it glit- 
tering in the sun on stately domes in the distance and knew the 
month was August and that my coat was hanging up because it 
was too warm to wear it, I was full as much amazed as if I 
never had heard of snow in August before. Truly, " seeing is 
believing" — and many a man lives a long life through, think- 
ing he believes certain universally received and well estab- 
lished things, and yet never suspects that if he were confronted 
by those things once, he would discover that he did not really 
believe them before, but only thought he believed them. 

In a little while quite a number of peaks swung into view 
with long claws of glittering snow clasping them ; and with 
here and there, in the shade, down the mountain side, a little 
solitary patch of snow looking no larger than a lady's pocket- 
handkerchief but being in reality as large as a " public square." 

And now, at last, we were fairly in the renowned South 



100 THE SOUTH PASS. 

Pass, and whirling gayly along high above the common world. 
We were perched upon the extreme summit of the great 
range of the Rocky Mountains, toward which we had been 
climbing, patiently climbing, ceaselessly climbing, for days 
and nights together — and about us was gathered a convention 
of Nature's kings that stood ten, twelve, and even thirteen 
thousand feet high — grand old fellows who would have to 
stoop to see Mount Washington, in the twilight. We were in 
such an airy elevation above the creeping populations of the 
earth, that now and then when the obstructing crags stood 
out of the way it seemed that we could look around and 
abroad and contemplate the whole great globe, with its dis- 
solving views of mountains, seas and continents stretching 
away through the mystery of the summer haze. 

As a general thing the Pass was more suggestive of a val- 
ley than a suspension bridge in the clouds — but it strongly 
suggested the latter at one spot. At that place the upper 
third of one or two majestic purple domes projected above our 
level on either hand and gave us a sense of a hidden great 
deep of mountains and plains and valleys down about their 
bases which we fancied we might see if we could step to the 
edge and look over. These Sultans of the fastnesses were tur- 
baned with tumbled volumes of cloud, which shredded away 
from time to time and drifted off fringed and torn, trailing 
their continents of shadow after them ; and catching presently 
on an intercepting peak, wrapped it about and brooded there 
— then shredded away again and left the purple peak, as they 
had left the purple domes, downy and white with new-laid 
snow. In passing, these monstrous rags of cloud hung low 
and swept along right over the spectator's head, swinging their 
tatters so nearly in his face that his impulse was to shrink 
when they came closest. In the one place I speak of, one 
could look below him upon a world of diminishing crags and 
canyons leading down, down, and away to a vague plain with 
a thread in it which was a road, and bunches of feathers in it 
which were trees, — a pretty picture sleeping in the sunlight — 
but with a darkness stealing over it and glooming its features 



TWO LONG JOURNEYS. 



101 



deeper and deeper under the frown of a - coming storm ; and 
then, while no film or shadow marred the noon brightness of 
his high perch, he could watch the tempest break forth down 
there and see the lightnings leap from crag to crag and the 
sheeted rain drive along the canyon-sides, and hear the thun- 
ders peal and crash and roar. We had this spectacle ; a famil- 
iar one to many, but to us a novelty. 

We bowled along cheerily, and presently, at the very sum- 
mit (though it 

had been all 
summit to us, 
and all equally 
level, for half 
an hour or more), 
we came to a 
spring w h i c h 
spent its water 
through two out- 
lets and sent it 
in opposite di- 
rections. The 
conductor said that one of those 
streams which we were looking 
at, was just starting on a jour- 
ney westward to the Gulf of 
California and the Pacific Ocean, through hundreds and even 
thousands of miles of desert solitudes. He said that the 
other was just leaving its home among the snow-peaks on 
a similar journey eastward — and we knew that long after we 
should have forgotten the simple rivulet it would still be plod- 
ding its patient way down the mountain sides, and canyon- 
beds, and between the banks of the Yellowstone ; and by and 
by would join the broad Missouri and flow through unknown 
plains and deserts and unvisited wildernesses ; and add a long 
and troubled pilgrimage among snags and wrecks and sand- 
bars; and enter the Mississippi, touch the wharves of St. 
Louis and still drift on, traversing shoals and rocky channels, 




THE PARTED STREAM. 



102 



OLD FRIENDS MEET. 



then endless chains of bottomless and ample bends, walled 
with unbroken forests, then mysterious byways and secret pas- 
ages among woody islands, then the chained bends again, bor~ 
dered with wide levels of shining sugar-cane in place of the 
gombre forests ; then by New Orleans and still other chains 
of bends — and finally, after two long months of daily and 
nightly harassment, excitement, enjoyment, adventure, and 
awful peril of parched throats, pumps and evaporation, pass 
the Gulf and enter into its rest upon the bosom of the tropic 
sea, never to look upon its snow-peaks again or regret them. 

I freighted a leaf with a mental message for the friends at 
home, and dropped it in the stream. But I put no stamp on 
it and it was held for postage somewhere. 

On the summit we overtook an emigrant train of many 
wagons, many tired men and women, and many a disgusted 
sheep and cow. * In the wofully dusty horseman in charge of 

the expedition I recognized John . Of all persons in the 

world to meet on top of the 
Rocky Mountains thousands 
of miles from home,he was the 
last one I should have looked 
for. We were school-boys 
together and warm friends 
for years. But a boyish 
prank of mine had disrup- 
tured this friendship and 
it had never been renewed. 
The act of which I speak 
was this. I had been ac- 
customed to visit occasion- 
ally an editor whose room 
was in the third story of a 
building and overlooked the 
street. One day this editor 
gave me a watermelon 
it foiled the melon. which I made preparations 

to devour on the spot, but chancing to look out of the 




DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, 



103 



window, I saw John standing directly under it and an 
irresistible desire came npon me to drop the melon on his 
head, which I immediately did. I was the loser, for it spoiled 
the melon, and John never forgave me and we dropped 
all intercourse and parted, but now met again under these 
circumstances. 

"We recognized each other simultaneously, and hands 
were grasped as warmly as if no coldness had ever existed 
between us, and no allusion was made to any. All animosities 
were buried and the simple fact of meeting a familiar face in 
that isolated spot so far from home, was sufficient to make us 
forget all things but pleasant ones, and we parted again with 
sincere " good-byes " and " God bless you " from both. 

We had been climbing up the long shoulders of the Rocky 
Mountains for many tedious hours — we started down them, 
now. And we went spinning away at a round rate too. 

We left the snowy Wind River Mountains and Uinta 
Mountains behind, and sped away, always through splendid 
scenery but occasionally through long ranks of white skele- 
tons of mules and 
oxen — monu- 
ments of the huge 
emigration of 
other days — and 
here and there 
were up-ended 
boards or small 
piles of stones 
which the driver 
said marked the 
resting-place of 
more precious 

remains. It was the loneliest land for a grave ! A land given 
over to the cayote and the raven — which is but another name 
for desolation and utter solitude. On damp, murky nights, 
these scattered skeletons gave forth a soft, hideous glow, like 
very faint spots of moonlight starring the vague desert. It 




GIVEN OVER TO THE CAYOTE AND THE HAVEN. 



104 



VERT FOOLISH ADVICE. 



was because of the phosphorus in the bones. But no scientific 
explanation could keep a body from shivering when he drifted 
by one of those ghostly lights and knew that a skull held it. 

At midnight it began to rain, and I never saw anything 
like it — indeed, I did not even see this, for it was too dark. 
We fastened down the curtains and even caulked them with 
clothing, but the rain streamed in in twenty places, notwith- 
standing. There was no escape. If one moved his feet out 
of a stream, he brought his body under one ; and if he moved 
his body he caught one somewhere else. If he struggled out 
of the drenched blankets and sat up, he was bound to get one 
down the back of his neck. Meantime the stage was wander- 
ing about a plain with gaping gullies in it, for the driver could 
not see an inch before his face nor keep the road , and the 
storm pelted so pitilessly that there was no keeping the horses 
still. With the first abatement the conductor turned out with 
lanterns to look for the road, and the first dash he made was 
into a chasm about fourteen feet deep, his lantern following 

like a meteor. As soon as 
he touched bottom he sang 
out frantically : 

" Don't come here ! " 
To which the driver, who 
was looking over the preci- 
pice where he had disap- 
peared, replied, with an in- 
jured air : " Think I'm a 
dam fool?" 

The conductor was more 
than an hour finding the road 
"don't come here." — a matter which showed us 

how far we had wandered and what chances we had been 
taking. He traced our wheel-tracks to the imminent verge of 
danger, in two places. I have always been glad that we were 
not killed that night. I do not know any particular reason, but 
I have always been glad. 

In the morning, the tenth day out, we crossed Green 




WE GO WITH THE MAJORITY. 



105 



River, a fine, large, limpid stream — stuck in it, with the water 
just up to the top of our mail-bed, and waited till extra teams 
were put on to haul us up the steep bank. But it was nice 
cool water, and besides it could not find any fresh place on us 
to wet. 

At the Green River station we had breakfast — hot biscuits, 
fresh antelope steaks, and coffee — the only decent meal we 
tasted between the United States and Great Salt Lake City, 
and the only one we were 
ever really thankful for. 
Think of the monotonous 
execrableness of the thirty 
that went before it, to leave 
this one simple breakfast 
looming up in my memory 
like a shot-tower after all 
these years have gone by ! 

At five p.m. we reached 
Fort Bridger, one hundred 
and seventeen miles from 
the South Pass, and one 
thousand and twenty-five miles from St. Joseph. Fifty-two 
miles further on, near the head of Echo Canyon, we met sixty 
United States soldiers from Camp Floyd. The day before, they 
had fired upon three hundred or four hundred Indians, whom 
they supposed gathered together for no good purpose. In 
the fight that had ensued, four Indians were captured, and 
the main body chased four miles, but nobody killed. This 
looked like business. We had a notion to get out and join the 
sixty soldiers, but upon reflecting that there were four hundred 
of the Indians, we concluded to go on and join the Indians. 

Echo Canyon is twenty miles long. It was like a long, 
smooth, narrow street, with a gradual descending grade, and 
shut in by enormous perpendicular walls of coarse conglom- 
erate, four hundred feet high in many places, and turreted like 
mediaeval castles. This was the most faultless piece of road 
in the mountains^ and the driver said he would " let his team 




106 



WE VISIT AN ANGEL. 



out." He did, and if the Pacific express trains whiz through 
there now any faster than we did then in the stage-coach, I 
envy the passengers the exhilaration of it. We fairly seemed 
to pick up our wheels and fly — and the mail matter was lifted 
up free from everything and held in solution ! I am not given 
to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it. 

However, time presses. At four in the afternoon we 

arrived on the summit of 
Big Mountain, fifteen miles 
from Salt Lake City, when 
all the world was glorified 
with the setting sun, and 
the most stupendous pano- 
rama of mountain peaks yet 
encountered burst on our 
sight. We looked out upon 
this sublime spectacle from 
under the arch of a brilliant 
rainbow! Even the over- 
land stage-driver stopped his 
horses and gazed ! 

Half an hour or an hour 
later, we changed horses, and 
took supper with a Mormon 
" Destroying Angel." " De- 
stroying Angels," as I un- 
derstand it, are Latter-Day Saints who are set apart by the 
Church to conduct permanent disappearances of obnoxious 
citizens. I had heard a deal about these Mormon Destroying 
Angels and the dark and bloody deeds they had done, and 
when I entered this one's house I had my shudder all ready. 
But alas for all our romances, he was nothing but a loud, 
profane, offensive, old blackguard ! He was murderous enough, 
possibly, to fill the bill of a Destroyer, but would you have any 
kind of an Angel devoid of dignity ? Could you abide an Angel 
in an unclean shirt and no suspenders ? Could you respect 
an Angel with a horse-laugh and a swagger like a buccaneer? 




THE "DESTROYING ANGEL." 



CITY OF THE SAINTS. 107 

There were other blackguards present — comrades of this 
one. And there was one person that looked like a gentleman 
— Heber C. Kimball's son, tall and well made, and thirty years 
old, perhaps. A lot of slatternly women flitted hither and 
thither in a hurry, with coffee-pots, plates of bread, and other 
appurtenances to supper, and these were said to be the wives 
of the Angel — or some of them, at least. And of course they 
were ; for if they had been hired " help " they would not have 
let an angel from above storm and swear at them as he did, 
let alone one from the place this one hailed from. 

This was our first experience of the western " peculiar in- 
stitution," and it was net very prepossessing. We did not 
tarry long to observe it but hurried on to the home of the 
Latter-Day Saints, the strocghold of the prophets, the capital 
of the only absolute monarch in America — Great Salt Lake 
City. As the night closed in we took qaactiwy in the Sah 
Lake House and unpacked our bagg&ge^ 



OHAPTEE XIII. 

"TTT"E had a fine supper, of the freshest meats and fowls 
V V and vegetables — a great variety and as great abun- 
dance. We walked about the streets some, afterward, and 
glanced in at shops and stores ; and there was fascination in 
surreptitiously staring at every creature we took to be a Mor- 
mon. This was fairy-land to us, to all intents and purposes — 
a land of enchantment, and goblins, and awful mystery. We 
felt a curiosity to ask every child how many mothers it had, 
and if it could tell them apart ; and we experienced a thrill 
every time a dwelling-house door opened and shut as we 
passed, disclosing a glimpse of human heads and backs and 
shoulders — for we so longed to have a good satisfying look at 
a Mormon family in all its comprehensive ampleness, disposed 
in the customary concentric rings of its home circle. 

By and by the Acting Governor of the Territory intro- 
duced us to other " Gentiles," and we spent a sociable hour 
with them. " Gentiles " are people who are not Mormons. 
Our fellow-passenger, Bemis, took care of himself, during this 
part of the evening, and did not make an overpowering suc- 
cess of it, either, for he came into our room in the hotel about 
eleven o'clock, full of cheerfulness, and talking loosely, dis- 
jointedly and indiscriminately, and every now and then tug- 
ging out a ragged word by the roots that had more hiccups 
than syllables in it. This, together with his hanging his coat 
on the floor on one side of a chair, and his vest on the floor 
on the other side, and piling his pants on the floor just in 



BEMIS'S WEAKNESS. 



109 



front of the same chair, and then contemplating the general 
result with superstitious awe, and finally pronouncing it "too 
many for him " and going to bed with his boots on, led us 
to fear that something 




not 



he had eaten had 
agreed with him. 

But we knew after- 
ward that it was some- 
thing he had been 
drinking. It was the 
exclusively Mormon 
refresher," valley tan." 
Valley tan (or, at least, 
one form of valley 
tan) is a kind of whis- 
ky, or first cousin to 
it; is of Mormon in- 
vention and manufac- 
tured only in Utah. 
Tradition says it is 
made of (imported) 
fire and brimstone. If 
I remember rightly no public drinking saloons were allowed 
in the kingdom by Brigham Young, and no private drinking 
permitted among the faithful, except they confined themselves 
to " valley tan." 

Next day we strolled about everywhere through the broad, 
straight, level streets, and enjoyed the pleasant strangeness of 
a city of fifteen thousand inhabitants with no loafers percepti- 
ble in it ; and no visible drunkards or noisy people ; a limpid 
stream rippling and dancing through every street in place of 
a filthy gutter ; block after block of trim dwellings, built of 
" frame " and sunburned brick — a great thriving orchard and 
garden behind every one of them, apparently — branches from 
the street stream winding and sparkling among the garden 
beds and fruit trees — and a grand general air of neatness, re- 
pair, thrift and comfort, around and about and over the whole. 



EFFECTS OF " VALLEY TAN." 



no 



BEARS AGAINST BEES. 




And everywhere were workshops, factories, and all manner of 
industries ; and intent faces and busy hands were to be seen 
wherever one looked ; and in one's ears was the ceaseless clink 
of hammers, the buzz of trade and the contented hum of 
drums and fly-wheels. 

The armorial crest of my own State consisted of two dis- 
solute bears holding up the 
head of a dead and gone 
cask between them and mak- 
ing the pertinent remark, 
"United, We Stand — o&i) — 
Divided, We Fall." It was 
always too figurative for the 
author of this book. But 
the Mormon crest was easy. 
And it was simple, unosten- 
tatious, and fitted like a 
glove. It was a representa- 
tion of a Golden Beehive, 
with the bees all at work ! 
The city lies in the edge of a level plain as broad as the 
State of Connecticut, and 
crouches close down to the 
ground under a curving wall 
of mighty mountains whose 
heads are hidden in the 
clouds, and whose shoulders 
bear relics of the snows of 
winter all the summer long. 
Seen from one of these dizzy 
heights, twelve or fifteen 
miles off, Great Salt Lake 
City is toned down and di- 
minished till it is suggestive 
of a child's toy-village re- 
posing under the majestic protection of the Chinese wall. 
On some of those mountains, to the southwest, it had been 



ONE CREST. 




THE OTHER. 



A HEALTHY CITY. 



Ill 



raining every day for two weeks, but not a drop had fallen in 
the city. And on hot days in late spring and early autumn 
the citizens could quit fanning and growling and go out and 
cool off by looking at the luxury of a glorious snow-storm go- 
ing on in the mountains. They could enjoy it at a distance, 
at those seasons, every day, though no snow would fall in their 
streets, or anywhere near them. 

Salt Lake City was healthy — an extremely healthy city. 
They declared there was only one physician in t/he place and 




1HE VAGKANT. 



he was arrested every week regularly and held to answer under 
the vagrant act for having " no visible means of support." 
They always give you a good substantial article of truth in 



112 VISIT TO BRIGHAM YOUNG. 

Salt Lake, and good measure and good weight, too. Yery 
often, if you wished to weigh one of their airiest little com- 
monplace statements you would want the hay scales.] 

We desired to visit the famous inland sea, the American 
" Dead Sea," the great Salt Lake — seventeen miles, horseback, 
from the city — for we had dreamed about it, and thought 
about it, and talked about it, and yearned to see it, all the first 
part of our trip ; but now when it was only arm's length away 
it had suddenly lost nearly every bit of its interest.. And so 
we put it off, in a sort of general way, till next day — and that 
was the last we ever thought of it. We dined with some hos- 
pitable Gentiles; and visited the foundation of the prodigious 
temple ; and talked long with that shrewd Connecticut Yankee, 
Heber C. Kimball (since deceased), a saint of high degree 

and a mighty man of commerce. 
We saw the " Tithing-House," and 
the "Lion House," and I do not 
know or remember how many 
more church and government 
buildings of various kinds and 
curious names. We flitted hither 
and thither and enjoyed every 
hour, and picked up a great deal 
of useful information and enter- 
taining nonsense, and went to 
bed at night satisfied. 
The second day, we made the acquaintance of Mr. Street 
(since deceased) and put on white shirts and went and paid a 
state visit to the king. He seemed a quiet, kindly, easy-man- 
nered, dignified, self-possessed old gentleman of fifty-five or 
sixty, and had a gentle craft in his eye that probably belonged 
there. He was very simply dressed and was just taking off a 
straw hat as we entered. He talked about Utah, and the In- 
dians, and Nevada, and general American matters and ques- 
tions, with our secretary and certain government officials who 
came with us. But he never paid any attention to me, not- 
withstanding I made several attempts to " draw him out " on 




YOUNG AMERICA PATRONIZED. 



113 



federal politics and his high handed attitude toward Congress. 
I thought some of the things I said were rather fine. But he 
merely looked around at me, at distant intervals, something as I 




have seen a benignant old cat look around to see which kitten 
was meddling with her tail. By and by I subsided into an 
indignant silence, and so sat until the end, hot and flushed, 
and execrating him in my heart for an ignorant savage. But 
he was calm. His conversation with those gentlemen flowed 
on as sweetly and peacefully and musically as any summer 
brook. When the audience was ended and we were retiring 
from the presence, he put his hand on my head, beamed down 
on me in an admiring way and said to my brother : 
" Ah — your child, I presume ? Boy, or girl ? " 
8t 



OHAPTEE XIV. 

ME. STEEET was very busy with his telegraphic matters 
— and considering that he had eight or nine hundred 
miles of rugged, snowy, uninhabited mountains, and waterless, 
treeless, melancholy deserts to traverse with his wire, it was 
natural and needful that he should be as busy as possible. He 
could not go comfortably along and cut his poles by the road- 
side, either, but they had to be hauled by ox teams across 
those exhausting deserts — and it was two days' journey from 
water to water, in one or two of them. Mr. Street's contract 
was a vast work, every way one looked at it ; and yet to com- 
prehend what the vague words " eight hundred miles of rug- 
ged mountains and dismal deserts " mean, one must go over 
the ground in person — pen and ink descriptions cannot convey 
the dreary reality to the reader. And after all, Mr. S.'s 
mightiest difficulty turned out to be one which he had never 
taken into the account at all. Unto Mormons he had sub-let 
the hardest and heaviest half of his great undertaking, and all 
of a sudden they concluded that they were going to make 
little or nothing, and so they tranquilly threw their poles 
overboard in mountain or desert, just as it happened when 
they took the notion, and drove home and went about their 
customary business ! They were under written contract to 
Mr. Street, but they did not care anything for that. They 
said they would " admire " to see a " Gentile " force a Mormon 
to fulfil a losing contract in Utah ! And they made them- 



A CONTRACTOR IN TROUBLE. 115 

selves very merry over the matter. Street said — for it was lie 
that told us these things : 

" I was in dismay. I was under heavy bonds to complete 
my contract in a given time, and this disaster looked very 
much like ruin. It was an astounding thing ; it was such a 
wholly unlooked-for difficulty, that I was entirely nonplussed. 
I am a business man — have always been a business man — do 
not know anything but business — and so you can imagine how 
like being struck by lightning it was to find myself in a country 
where written contracts were worthless ! — that main security, 
that sheet-anchor, that absolute necessity, of business. My 
confidence left me. There was no use in making new con- 
tracts — that was plain. I talked with first one prominent 
citizen and then another. They all sympathized with me, first 
rate, but they did not know how to help me. But at last a 
Gentile said, ' Go to Brigham Young ! — these small fry cannot 
do you any good.' I did not think much of the idea, for if 
the law could not help me, what could an individual do who 
had not even anything to do with either making the laws or 
executing them? He might be a very good patriarch of a 
church and preacher in its tabernacle, but something sterner 
than religion and moral suasion was needed to handle a hun- 
dred refractory, hall-civilized sub-contractors. But what was 
a man to do ? I thought if Mr. Young could not do anything 
else, he might probably be able to give me some advice and a 
valuable hint or two, and so I went straight to him and laid 
the whole case before him. He said very little, but he showed 
strong interest all the way through. He examined all the 
papers in detail, and whenever there seemed anything like a 
hitch, either in the papers or my statement, he would go back 
and take up the thread and follow it patiently out to an intel- 
ligent and satisfactory result. Then he made a list of the 
contractors' names. Finally he said : 

" ' Mr. Street, this is all perfectly plain. These contracts 
are strictly and legally drawn, and are duly signed and certi- 
fied. These men manifestly entered into them with their eyes 
open. I see no fault or flaw anywhere.' 

" Then Mr. Young turned to a man waiting at the other 



116 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DECISION. 



end of the room and said : ' Take this list of names to So-and- 
so, and tell him to have these men here at such-and-such an 
hour.' 

" They were there, to the minute. So was I. Mr. Young 




THE CONTRACTORS BEFORE THE KING. 



asked them a number of questions, and their answers made 
my statement good. Then he said to them : 

" ' You signed these contracts and assumed these obligations 
of your own free will and accord ? ' 

"'Yes.' 

" ' Then carry them out to the letter, if it makes paupers of 
you! Go!' 

" And they did go, too ! They are strung across the des- 
erts now, working like bees. And I never hear a word out 
of them. There is a batch of governors, and judges, and other 
officials here, shipped from Washington, and they maintain 
the semblance of a republican form of government — but the 



NEW VIEWS OF POLYGAMY. 



117 



petrified truth is that Utah is an absolute monarchy and Brig^ 
ham Young is king ! " 

Mr. Street was a fine man, and I believe his story. I 
knew him well during several years afterward in San Fran- 
cisco. 

Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, 
and therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisi- 
tion into the workings of polygamy and get up the usual 




I WAS TOUCHED. 



statistics and deductions preparatory to calling the attention 
of the nation at large once more to the matter. I had the 
will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was 
feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform 
here — until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. 
My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these 



118 



UNACCOUNTABLE BENEVOLENCE. 



poor, ungainly and pathetically " homely " creatures, and as I 
turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, 
11 No — the man that marries one of them has done an act of 
Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause 
of mankind, not their harsh censure — and the man that mar- 
ries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity 
so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his 
presence and worship in silence." * 

* For a brief sketch of Mormon history, and the noted Mountain Meadow 
massacre, see Appendices A and B. 




CHAPTEE XT. 

IT is a luscious country for thrilling evening stories about 
assassinations of intractable Gentiles. I cannot easily 
conceive of anything more cosy than the night in Salt Lake 
which we spent in a Gentile den, smoking pipes and listening 
to tales of how Burton galloped in among the pleading and 
defenceless "Morisites" and shot them down, men and 
women, like so many dogs. And how Bill Hickman, a De- 
stroying Angel, shot Drown and Arnold dead for bringing suit 
against him for a debt. And how Porter Rockwell did this 
and that dreadful thing. And how heedless people often come 
to Utah and make remarks about Brigham, or polygamy, or 
some other sacred matter, and the very next morning at day- 
light such parties are sure to be found lying up some back 
alley, contentedly waiting for the hearse. 

And the next most interesting thing is to sit and listen to 
these Gentiles talk about polygamy; and how some portly 
old frog of an elder, or a bishop, marries a girl — likes her, 
marries her sister — likes her, marries another sister — likes her. 
takes another — likes her, marries her mother — likes her, mar- 
ries her father, grandfather, great grandfather, and then comes 
back hungry and asks for more. And how the pert young 
thing of eleven will chance to be the favorite wife and her 
own venerable grandmother have to rank away down toward 
D 4 in their mutual husband's esteem, and have to sleep in 
the kitchen, as like as not. And how this dreadful sort of 
thing, this hiving together in one foul nest of mother and 



120 



BRIGHAM YOUNG'S HAREM. 



daughters, and the making a young daughter superior to her 
own mother in rank and authority, are things which Mormon 
women submit to because their religion teaches them that 




FAVORITE WIFE AND D 4. 

the more wives a man has on earth, and the more children he 
rears, the higher the place they will all have in the world to 
come — and the warmer, maybe, though they do not seem to 
say anything about that. 

According to these Gentile friends of ours, Brigham 
Young's harem contains twenty or thirty wives. They said 
that some of them had grown old and gone out of active ser- 
vice, but were comfortably housed and cared for in the henery 
— or the Lion House, as it is strangely named. Along with 
each wife were her children — fifty altogether. The house was 
perfectly quiet and orderly, when the children were still. 
They all took their meals in one room, and a happy and home- 
like sight it was pronounced to be. None of our party got an 



SEARCH AMONG THE CHILDREN. 



121 



opportunity to take dinner with Mr. Young, but a Gentile by 
the name of Johnson professed to have enjoyed a sociable 
breakfast in the Lion House. He gave a preposterous account 
of the " calling of the roll," and other preliminaries, and the 
carnage that ensued when the buckwheat cakes came in. But 
he embellished rather too much. He said that Mr. Young 
told him several smart sayings of certain of his "two-year- 
olds," observing with some pride that for many years he had 
been the heaviest contributor in that line to one of the East- 
ern magazines ; and then he wanted to show Mr. Johnson one 
of the pets that had said the last good thing, but he could not 




NEEDED MARKING. 



find the child. He searched the faces of the children in de- 
tail, but could not decide which one it was. Finally he gave 
it up with a sigh and said : 

" I thought I would know the little cub again but ] 
don't." Mr 



Johnson said further, that Mr. Young observed 



122 COST OF GIFT TO No. 6. 

that life was a sad, sad thing — " because the joy of every new- 
marriage a man contracted was so apt to be blighted by the in- 
opportune funeral of a less recent bride." And Mr. Johnson 
said that while he and Mr. Young were pleasantly conversing 
in private, one of the Mrs. Youngs came in and demanded a 
breast-pin, remarking that she had found out that he had been 
giving a breast-pin to No. 6, and she, for one, did not propose 
to let this partiality go on without making a satisfactory 
amount of trouble about it. Mr. Young reminded her that 
there was a stranger present. Mrs. Young said that if the 
state of things inside the house was not agreeable to the 
stranger, he could find room outside. Mr. Young promised the 
breast-pin, and she went away. But in a minute or two 
another Mrs. Young came in and demanded a breast-pin. Mr. 
Young began a remonstrance, but Mrs. Young cut him short. 
She said No. 6 had got one, and No. 11 was promised one, 
and it was " no use for him to try to impose on her — she hoped 
she knew her rights." He gave his promise, and she went. 
And presently three Mrs. Youngs entered in a body and opened 
on their husband a tempest of tears, abuse, and entreaty. 
They had heard all about No. 6, No. 11, and No. 14. Three 
more breast-pins were promised. They were hardly gone 
when nine more Mrs. Youngs filed into the presence, and a 
new tempest burst forth and raged round about the prophet 
and his guest. Nine breast-pins were promised, and the 
weird sisters filed out again. And in came eleven more, 
weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth. Eleven prom- 
ised breast-pins purchased peace once more. 

" That is a specimen," said Mr. Young. " You see how it 
is. You see what a life I lead. A man can't be wise all the 
time. In a heedless moment I gave my darling No. 6 — excuse 
my calling her thus, as her other name has escaped me for the 
moment — a breast-pin. It was only worth twenty-five dollars 
— that is, apparently that was its whole cost — but its ultimate 
cost was inevitably bound to be a good deal more. You your- 
self have seen it climb up to six hundred and fifty dollars — 
and alas, even that is not the end ! For I have wives all over 



EFFECT OF A PENNY-WHISTLE GIFT. 123 

this Territory of Utah. I have dozens of wives whose num- 
bers, even, I do not know without looking in the family Bible. 
They are scattered far and wide among the mountains and 
valleys of my realm. And mark you, every solitary one of 
them will hear of this wretched breast pin, and every last one 
of them will have one or die. No. 6's breast pin will cost 
me twenty-five hundred dollars before I see the end of it. 
And these creatures will compare these pins together, and if 
one is a shade finer than the rest, they will all be thrown on 
my hands, and I will have to order a new lot to keep peace in 
the family. Sir, you probably did not know it, but all the 
time you were present with my children your every movement 
was watched by vigilant servitors of mine. If you had 
offered to give a child a dime, or a stick of candy, or any trifle 
of the kind, you would have been snatched out of the house 
instantly, provided it could be done before your gift left your 
hand. Otherwise it would be absolutely necessary for you to 
make an exactly similar gift to all my children — and knowing 
by experience the importance of the thing, I would have stood 
by and seen to it myself that you did it, and did it thoroughly. 
Once a gentleman gave one of my children a tin whistle — a 
veritable invention of Satan, sir, and one which I have an un- 
speakable horror of, and so would you if you had eighty or 
ninety children in your house. But the deed was done — the 
man escaped. I knew what the result was going to be, and I 
thirsted for vengeance. I ordered out a flock of Destroying 
Angels, and they hunted the man far into the fastnesses of the 
Nevada mountains. But they never caught him. I am not 
cruel, sir — I am not vindictive except when sorely outraged — 
but if I had caught him, sir, so help me Joseph Smith, I 
would have locked him into the nursery till the brats whistled 
him to death. By the slaughtered body of St. Parley Pratt 
(whom God assoil !) there was never anything on this earth 
like it ! /knew who gave the whistle to the child, but I could 
not make those jealous mothers believe me. They believed 1 
did it, and the result was just what any man of reflection 
could have foreseen : I had to order a hundred and ten 



124 



FATHERING THE FOUNDLINGS 



whistles — I think we had a hundred and ten children in the 
house then, but some of them are off at college now — I had 
to order a hundred and ten of those shrieking things, and I 
wish I may never speak another word if we didn't have to 
talk on our fingers entirety, from that time forth until the 
children got tired of the whistles. And if ever another man 
gives a whistle to a child of mine and I get my hands on him, 
I will hang him higher than Haman ! That is the word with 
the bark on it! Shade of Nephi! You don't know any- 
thing about married life. I am rich, and everybody knows it. 
I am benevolent, and everybody takes advantage of it. I have 
a strong fatherly instinct and all the foundlings are foisted on 
me. Every time a woman wants to do well by her darling, 
she puzzles her brain to cipher out some scheme for getting 




REMARKABLE RESEMBLAXCE. 



it into my hands. Why, sir, a woman came here once with a 
child of a curious lifeless sort of complexion (and so had the 
woman), and swore that the child was mine and she my wife — 



LARGE FAMILIES EXPENSIVE LUXURIES. 125 

that I had married her at such-and-such a time in such-and- 
such a place, but she had forgotten her number, and of course 
I could not remember her name. Well, sir, she called my 
attention to the fact that the child looked like me, and really 
it did seem to resemble me — a common thing in the Terri- 
tory — and, to cut the story short, I put it in my nursery, and 
she left. And by the ghost of Orson Hyde, when they came 
to wash the paint off that child it was an Injun ! Bless my 
soul, you don't know anything about married life. It is a 
perfect dog's life, sir — a perfect dog's life. You can't econo« 
mize. It isn't possible. I have tried keeping one set of bridal 
attire for all occasions. But it is of no use. First you'll marry 
a combination of calico and consumption that's as thin as a 
rail, and next you'll get a creature that's nothing more than 
the dropsy in disguise, and then you've got to eke out that 
bridal dress with an old balloon. That is the way it goes. 
And think of the wash-bill — (excuse these tears) — nine hun- 
dred and eighty-four pieces a week ! No, sir, there is no such 
a thing as economy in a family like mine. Why, just the one 
item of cradles — think of it ! And vermifuge ! Soothing 
syrup ! Teething rings ! And ' papa's watches ' for the 
babies to play with ! And things to scratch the furni- 
ture with ! And lucifer matches for them to eat, and 
pieces of glass to cut themselves with ! The item of glass 
alone would support your family, I venture to say, sir. Let 
me scrimp and squeeze all I can, I still can't get ahead as fast 
as I feel I ought to, with my opportunities. Bless you, sir, at 
a time when I had seventy-two wives in this house, I groaned 
under the pressure of keeping thousands of dollars tied up in 
seventy-two bedsteads when the money ought to have been 
out at interest ; and I just sold out the whole stock, sir, at a 
sacrifice, and built a bedstead seven feet long and ninety-six 
feet wide. But it was a failure, sir. I could not sleep. It 
appeared to me that the whole seventy-two women snored at 
once. The roar was deafening. And then the danger of it ! 
That was what I was looking at. They would all draw in 
their breath at once, and you could actually see the walls of 



126 



AN ATTEMPT AT ECONOMY. 



the house suck in — and then they would all exhale their 

breath at once, and you 
could see the walls swell 
out, and strain, and hear 
the rafters crack, and the 
shingles grind together. 
My friend, take an old 
man's advice, and don't 
encumber yourself with 
a large family — mind, I 
tell you, don't do it. In 
a small family, and in a 
small family only, you 
will find that comfort 
and that peace of mind 
which are the best at last 
of the blessings this 
world is able to afford 
us, and for the lack of 
which no accumulation 
of wealth, and no acqui- 
sition of fame, power, and 
greatness can ever com- 
pensate us. Take my 
word for it, ten or eleven 
wives is all you need — 
never go over it." 

Some instinct or other 
made me set this John- 
son down as being unre- 
liable. And yet he was 
a very entertaining per- 
son, and I doubt if some 
of the information he 
gave us could have been 
acquired from any other 
source. He was a pleas- 
ant contrast to those reticent Mormons. 




OHAPTEE XVI. 

ALL men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except 
the " elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble 
to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book 
is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so 
" slow," so sleepy ; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It 
is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, 
the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at 
any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it 
from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of cop- 
per, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out-of- 
the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a mira- 
cle, for the same reason. 

The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary 
history, with the Old Testament for a model ; followed by 
a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author 
labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned 
sound and structure of our King James's translation of the 
Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel — half modern glib- 
ness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is 
awkward and constrained ; the former natural, but grotesque 
by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too 
modern — which was about every sentence or two — he ladled in 
a few such Scriptural phrases as " exceeding sore," " and it came 
to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again. " And it 



128 THE BOOK OF MORMON. 

came to pass " was his pet. If lie had left that out, his Bible 
would have been only a pamphlet. 
The title-page reads as follows : 

The Book of Mormon: an account written by the Hand of Mor- 
mon, upon Plates taken from the Plates of Nephi. 
Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, 
and also of the Lamanites ; written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of 
the House of Israel ; and also to Jew and Gentile ; written by way of com- 
mandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation. Written 
and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed ; 
to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof ; 
sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in 
due time by the way of Gentile ; the interpretation thereof by the gift of 
God. An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also ; which is a 
record of the people of Jared ; who were scattered at the time the Lord 
confounded the language of the people when they were building a tower to 
get to Heaven. 

" Hid up " is good. And so is " wherefore" — though why 
" wherefore " ? Any other word would have answered as well 
— though in truth it would not have sounded so Scriptural. 

Next comes 

THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES. 

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom 
this work shall come, that we, through the grace of God the Father, and 
our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which 
is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their breth- 
ren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which 
hath been spoken ; and we also know that they have been translated by the 
gift and power of God, for His voice hath declared it unto us ; wherefore 
we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we 
have seen the engravings which are upon the plates ; and they have been 
shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with 
words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he 
brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and 
the engravings thereon ; and we know that it is by the grace of God the 
Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that 
these things are true ; and it is marvellous in our eyes ; nevertheless the 
voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it ; where- 
fore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of 



INDISPUTABLE EVIDENCE. 129 

these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid 
our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the 
judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with Him eternally in the heavens. 
And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, 
which is one God. Amen. 

Oliver Cowdery, 
David Whitmer, 
Martin Harris. 



Some people have to have a world of evidence before they 
can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing any- 
thing ; but for me, when a man tells me that he has " seen the 
engravings which are upon the plates," and not only that, but 
an angel Was there at the time, and saw him see them, and 
probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to 
conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before 
or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or 
his nationality either. 
Next is this : 

AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OP EIGHT WITNE88ES. 

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom 
this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr., the translator of this work, 
has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the 
appearance of gold ; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has trans- 
lated, we did handle with our hands ; and we also saw the engravings 
thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious 
workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said 
Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a 
surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. 
And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which 
we have seen ; and we lie not, God bearing witness of it. 

Christian Whitmer, Hiram Page, 

Jacob Whitmer, Joseph Smith, Sr., 

Peter Whitmer, Jr., Hyrum Smith, 

John Whitmer, Samuel H. Smith. 

And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight 
men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell 
me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen 
9f 



130 EARLY MORMONS ON A SPREE. 

those plates but " hefted " them, I am convinced. I could not 
feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family 
had testified. 

The Mormon Bible consists of fifteen u books " — being the 
books of Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Zeniff, Alma, 
Helaman, Ether, Moroni, two " books " of Mormon, and three 
of Nephi. 

In the first book of Nephi is a plagiarism of the Old Tes- 
tament, which gives an account of the exodus from Jerusalem 
of the " children of Lehi " ; and it goes on to tell of their 
wanderings in the wilderness, during eight years, and their 
supernatural protection by one of their number, a party by the 
name of Nephi. They finally reached the land of " Bounti- 
ful," and camped by the sea. After they had remained there 
" for the space of many days " — which is more Scriptural than 
definite — Nephi was commanded from on high to build a ship 
wherein to " carry the people across the waters." He traves- 
tied Noah's ark — but he obeyed orders in the matter of the 
plan. He finished the ship in a single day, while his breth- 
ren stood by and made fun of it — and of him, too — " saying, 
our brother is a fool, for he thinketh that he can build a ship." 
They did not wait for the timbers to dry, but the whole tribe 
or nation sailed the next day. Then a bit of genuine nature 
cropped out, and is revealed by outspoken Nephi with Script- 
ural frankness — they all got on a spree ! They, " and also 
their wives, began to make themselves merry, insomuch that 
they began to dance, and to sing, and to speak with much 
rudeness ; yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness." 

Nephi tried to stop these scandalous proceedings ; but they 
tied him neck and heels, and went on with their lark. But 
observe how ISTephi the prophet circumvented them by the aid 
of the invisible powers : 

And it came to pass that after they had bound me, insomuch that I could 
not move, the compass, which had been prepared of the Lord, did cease to 
work ; wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship, inso- 
much that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and 



A MIRACLE WROUGHT. 131 

we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days ; and they 
began to be frightened exceedingly, lest they should be drowned in the sea ; 
nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the fourth day, which we had 
been driven back, the tempest began to be exceeding sore. 

And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the 
depths of the sea. 

Then they untied him. 

And it came to pass after they had loosed me, behold, I took the compass, 
and it did work whither I desired it. And it came to pass that I prayed 
unto the Lord ; and after I had prayed, the winds did cease, and the storm 
did cease, and there was a great calm. 




THE MIRACULOUS COMPASS. 



Equipped with their compass, these ancients appear to have 

had the advantage of Noah. 



132 INTRODUCTION OF POLYGAMY. 

Their voyage was toward a "promised land" — the only 
name they give it. They reached it in safety. 

Polygamy is a recent feature in the Mormon religion, and 
was added by Brigham Young after Joseph Smith's death. 
Before that, it was regarded as an " abomination." This verse 
from the Mormon Bible occurs in Chapter II. of the book of 
Jacob : 

For behold, thus saith the Lord, this people begin to wax in iniquity ; 
they understand not the Scriptures ; for they seek to excuse themselves in 
committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concern, 
ing David, and Solomon his son. Behold, David and Solomon truly had 
many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith 
the Lord ; wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out 
of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up 
unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Where- 
fore, I the Lord God, will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them 
of old. 

However, the project failed — or at least the modern Mor- 
mon end of it — for Brigham " suffers " it. This verse is from 
the same chapter : 

Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate, because of their 
filthiness and the cursings which hath come upon their skins, are more 
righteous than you ; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the 
Lord, which was given unto our fathers, that they should have, save it were 
one wife ; and concubines they should have none. 

The following verse (from Chapter IX. of the Book of 
Kephi) appears to contain information not familiar to every- 
body : 

And now it came to pass that when Jesus had ascended into heaven, the 
multitude did disperse, and every man did take his wife and his children, 
and did return to his own home. 

And it came to pass that on the morrow, when the multitude was gath- 
ered together, behold, Nephi and his brother whom he had raised from the 
dead, whose name was Timothy, and also his son, whose name was Jonas, 
and also Mathoni, and Mathonihah, his brother, and Kumen, and Kumen. 
onhi, and Jeremiah, and Shemnon, and Jonas, and Zedekiah, and Isaiah; 
now these were the names of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen. 



NOT ELSEWHERE RECORDED. 133 

In order that the reader may observe how much more 
grandeur and picturesqueness (as seen by these Mormon twelve) 
accompanied one of the tenderest episodes in the life of our 
Saviour than other eyes seem to have been aware of, I quote 
the following from the same " book " — Nephi : 

And it came to pass that Jesus spake unto them, and bade them arise. 
And they arose from the earth, and He said unto them, Blessed are ye be- 
cause of your faith. And now behold, My joy is full. And when He had 
said these words, He wept, and the multitude bear record of it, and He took 
their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the 
Father for them. And when He had done this He wept again, and He spake 
unto the multitude, and saith unto them, Behold your little ones. And as 
they looked to behold, they cast their eyes toward heaven, and they saw 
the heavens open, and they saw angels descending out of heaven as it were, 
in the midst of fire ; and they came down and encircled those little ones 
about, and they were encircled about with fire ; and the angels did minister 
unto them, and the multitude did see and hear and bear record ; and they 
know that their record is true, for they all of them did see and hear, every 
man for himself ; and they were in number about two thousand and five 
hundred souls ; and they did consist of men, women, and children. 

And what else would they be likely to consist of? 

The Book of Ether is an incomprehensible medley of "his- 
tory," much of it relating to battles and sieges among peoples 
whom the reader has possibly never heard of; and who inhabited 
a country which is not set down in the geography. There was 
a King with the remarkable name of Coriantumr, and he 
warred with Shared, and Lib, and Shiz, and others, in the 
" plains of Heshlon " ; and the " valley of Gilgal " ; and the 
" wilderness of Akish " ; and the " land of Moran " ; and the 
" plains of Agosh " ; and " Ogath," and " Ramah," and the 
" land of Corihor," and the " hill Comnor," by " the waters 
of Ripliancum," etc., etc., etc. " And it came to pass," after 
a deal of fighting, that Coriantumr, upon making calculation 
of his losses, found that " there had been slain two millions of 
mighty men, and also their wives and their children " — say 
5,000,000 or 6,000,000 in all—" and he began to sorrow in his 
heart." Unquestionably it was time. So he wrote to Shiz, 
asking a cessation of hostilities, and offering to give up his 



134 AN ANCIENT BATTLE. 

kingdom to save his people. Shiz declined, except upon con- 
dition that Coriantumr would come and let him cut his head 
off first — a thing which Coriantumr would not do. Then 
there was more fighting for a season ; then your years were de- 
voted to gathering the forces for a final struggle — after which 
ensued a battle, which, I take it, is the most remarkable set 
forth in history, — except, perhaps, that of the Kilkenny cats, 
which it resembles in some respects. This is the account of 
the gathering ajid the battle : 

7. And it came to pass that they did gather together all the people, upon 
all the face of the land, who had not been slain, save it was Ether. And it 
came to pass that Ether did behold all the doings of the people ; and he be- 
held that the people who were for Coriantumr, were gathered together to 
the army of Coriantumr ; and the people who were for Shiz, were gathered 
together to the army of Shiz ; wherefore they were for the space of four 
years gathering together the people, that they might get all who were upon 
the face of the land, and that they might receive all the strength which it 
was possible that they could receive. And it came to pass that when they 
were all gathered together, every one to the army which he would, with 
their wives and their children; both men, women, and children being armed 
with weapons of war, having shields, and breast-plates, and head-plates, and 
being clothed after the manner of war, they did march forth one against 
another, to battle ; and they fought all that day, and conquered not And it 
came to pass that when it was night they were weary, and retired to their 
camps ; and after they had retired to their camps, they took up a howling 
and a lamentation for the loss of the slain of their people ; and so great 
were their cries, their bowlings and lamentations, that it did rend the air 
exceedingly. And it came to pass that on the morrow they did go again to 
battle, and great and terrible was that day ; nevertheless they conquered not, 
and when the night came again, they did rend the air with their cries, and 
their bowlings, and their mournings, for the loss of the slain of their 
people. 

8. And it came to pass that Coriantumr wrote again an epistle unto Shiz, 
desiring that he would not come again to battle, but that he would take the 
kingdom, and spare the lives of the people. But behold, the Spirit of the 
Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the 
hearts of the people, for they were given up unto the hardness of their 
hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed; 
wherefore they went again to battle. And it came to pass that they fought 
all that day, and when the night came they slept upon their swords ; and on 
the morrow they fought even until the night came ; and when the night 
came they were drunken with anger, even as a man who is drunken with 



ORIGINAL KILKENNY CATS. 135 

wine ; and they slept again upon their swords ; and on the morrow they 
fought again ; and when the night came they had all fallen by the sword 
save it were fifty and two of the people of Coriantumr, and sixty and nine 
of the people of Shiz. And it came to pass that they slept upon their 
swords that night, and on the morrow they fought again, and they contended 
in their mights with their swords, and with their shields, all that day ; and 
when the night came there were thirty and two of the people of Shiz, and 
twenty and seven of the people of Coriantumr. 

9. And it came to pass that they ate and slept, and prepared for death on 
the morrow. And they were large and mighty men, as to the strength of 
men. And it came to pass that they fought for the space of three hours, 
and they fainted with the loss of blood. And it came to pass that when 
the men of Coriantumr had received sufficient strength, that they could 
walk, they were about to flee for their lives, but behold, Shiz arose, 
and also his men, and he swore in his wrath that he would slay Coriantumr, 
or he would perish by the sword : wherefore he did pursue them, and on 
the morrow he did overtake them ; and they fought again with the sword. 
And it came to pass that when they had all fallen by the sword, save it 
were Coriantumr and Shiz, behold Shiz had fainted with loss of blood. 
And it came to pass that when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that 
he rested a little, he smote off the head of Shiz. And it came to pass that 
after he had smote off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised upon his hands 
and fell ; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died. And it came 
to pass that Coriantumr fell to the earth, and became as if he had no 
life. And the Lord spake unto Ether, and said unto him, go forth. And he 
went forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord had all been fulfilled ; 
and he finished his record ; and the hundredth part I have not written. 

It seems a pity he did not finish, for after all his dreary 
former chapters of commonplace, he stopped just as he was in 
danger of becoming interesting. 

The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read, 
but there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of 
morals is unobjectionable — it is " smouched " * from the New 
Testament and no credit given. 

*Milton. 



OHAPTEE XVII. 

AT the end of our two days' sojourn, we left Great Salt 
Lake City hearty and well fed and happy — physically 
superb but not so very much wiser, as regards the " Mormon 
question," than we were when we arrived, perhaps. We had 
a deal more " information " than we had before, of course, but 
we did not know what portion of it was reliable and what was 
not — for it all came from acquaintances of a day — strangers, 
strictly speaking. We were told, for instance, that the dreadful 
" Mountain Meadows Massacre " was the work of the Indians 
entirely, and that the Gentiles had meanly tried to fasten it 
upon the Mormons ; we were told, likewise, that the Indians 
were to blame, partly, and partly the Mormons ; and we were 
told, likewise, and just as positively, that the Mormons were 
almost if not wholly and completely responsible for that most 
treacherous and pitiless butchery. We got the story in all 
these different shapes, but it was not till several years after- 
ward that Mrs. Waite's book, "The Mormon Prophet," came 
out with Judge Cradlebaugh's trial of the accused parties in 
it and revealed the truth that the latter version was the cor- 
rect one and that the Mormons were the assassins. All our 
" information " had three sides to it, and so I gave up the idea 
that I could settle the "Mormon question " in two days. Still 
I have seen newspaper correspondents do it in one. 

I left Great Salt Lake a good deal confused as to what 
state of things existed there — and sometimes even questioning 
in my own mind whether a state of things existed there at all 



IN A PIONEER LAND 



137 



or not. But presently I remembered with a lightening sense 
of relief that we had learned two or three trivial things there 
which we could be certain of; and so the two days were not 
wholly lost. For instance, we had learned that we were at last 
in a pioneer land, in absolute and tangible reality. The high 




THREE SIDES TO A QUESTION. 

prices charged for trifles were eloquent of high freights and 
bewildering distances of freightage. In the east, in those fiays, 
the smallest moneyed denomination was a penny and it repre- 
sented the smallest purchasable quantity of any commodity. 
West of Cincinnati the smallest coin in use was the silver five- 
cent piece and no smaller quantity of an article could be 
bought than " five cents' worth." In Overland City the low- 
est coin appeared to be the ten-cent piece ; but in Salt Lake 
there did not seem to be any money in circulation smaller 
than a quarter, or any smaller quantity purchasable of any 
commodity than twenty-five cents' worth. We had always 
been used to half dimes and " five cents' worth " as the mini- 
mum of financial negotiations ; but in Salt Lake if one wanted 
a cigar, it was a quarter ; if he wanted a chalk pipe, it was a 



138 THE INSULTED BOOT-BLACK. 

quarter j if he wanted a peach, or a candle, or a newspaper, 
or a shave, or a little Gentile whiskey to rub on his corns to 
arrest indigestion and keep him from having the toothache, 
twenty-five cents was the price, every time. When we looked 
at the shot-bag of silver, now and then, we seemed to be 

N. York. St. Louis. Overland City. Salt Lake City. 






lCent. 5 Cents. 10 Cents. 25 Cents. 

RESULT OF HIGH FREIGHTS. 

wasting our substance in riotous living, but if we referred to 
the expense account we oould see that we had not been doing 
anything of the kind. But people easily get reconciled to 
big money and big prices, and fond and vain of both — it is a 
descent to little coins and cheap prices that is hardest to bear 
and slowest to take hold upon one's toleration. After a 
month's acquaintance with the twenty-five cent minimum, the 
average human being is ready to blush every time he thinks of 
his despicable five-cent days. How sunburnt with blushes I 
used to get in gaudy Nevada, every time I thought of my first 
financial experience in Salt Lake. It was on this wise (which 
is a favorite expression of great authors, and a very neat one, 
too, but I never hear anybody say on this wise when they are 
talking). A young half-breed with a complexion like a yellow- 
jacket asked me if I would have my boots blacked. It was 
at the Salt Lake House the morning after we arrived. I said 
yes, and he blacked them. Then I handed him a silver five- 
cent piece, with the benevolent air of a person who is confer- 
ring wealth and blessedness upon poverty and suffering. The 
yellow-jacket took it with what I judged to be suppressed 
emotion, and laid it reverently down in the middle of his 
broad hand. Then he began to contemplate it, much as a 
philosopher contemplates a gnat's ear in the ample field of 



WHITE-SHIRTED EMIGRANTS 



139 



his microscope. Several mountaineers, teamsters, stage-drivers, 
etc., drew near and dropped into the tableau and fell to 
surveying the money with that attractive indifference to for- 
mality which is noticeable in the hardy pioneer. Presently the 
yellow-jacket handed the half dime back to me and told me I 
ought to keep my money in my pocket-book instead of in 
my soul, and then 
I wouldn't get it 
cramped and shriv- 
eled up so ! 

What a roar of 
vulgar laughter 
there was! I de- 
stroyed*the mongrel 
reptile on the spot, 
but I smiled and 
smiled all the time 
I was detaching his 
scalp, for the re- 
mark he made was 
good for an " In- 
jun." 

Yes, we had 
learned in Salt Lake 
to be charged great 
prices without letting the inward shudder appear on the sur- 
face — for even already we had overheard and noted the tenoi 
of conversations among drivers, conductors, and hostlers, and 
finally among citizens of Salt Lake, until we were well aware 
that these superior beings despised " emigrants." We per- 
mitted no tell-tale shudders and winces in our countenances, 
for we wanted to seem pioneers, or Mormons, half-breeds, 
teamsters, stage-drivers, Mountain Meadow assassins — anything 
in the world that the plains and Utah respected and admired — 
but we were wretchedly ashamed of being " emigrants," and 
sorry enough that we had white shirts and could not swear in 
the presence of ladies without looking the other way. 

And many a time in Nevada, afterwards, we had occasion 




A SHRIVELED QUARTER. 



140 PITIABLE IGNORANCE. 

to remember with humiliation that we were " emigrants," and 
consequently a low and interior sort of creatures. Perhaps 
the reader has visited Utah, Nevada, or California, even in 
these latter days, and while communing with himself upon the 
sorrowful banishment of those countries from what he con- 
siders " the world," has had his wings clipped by finding that 
he is the one to be pitied, and that there are entire popula- 
tions around him ready and willing to do it for him — yea, who 

are complacently doing it 
for him already, wherever 
he steps his foot. Poor 
thing, they are making fun 
of his hat ; and the cut of 
his New York coat; and 
his conscientiousness about 
his grammar ; and his feeble 
profanity ; and his consum- 
ingly ludicrous ignorance of 
ores, shafts, tunnels, and 
other things which he never 
saw before, and never felt 
enough interest in to read 

AN OBJECT OF PITY. , A , ,, ,, , . 

about. And all the time 
that he is thinking what a sad fate it is to be exiled to that 
far country, that lonely land, the citizens around him are look- 
ing down on him with a blighting compassion because he is 
an " emigrant " instead of that proudest and blessedest crea- 
ture that exists on all the earth, a " Forty-Niner." 

The accustomed coach life began again, now, and by mid- 
night it almost seemed as if we never had been out of our 
snuggery among the mail sacks at all. We had made one alter- 
ation, however. We had provided enough bread, boiled ham 
and hard boiled eggs to last double the six hundred miles of 
staging we had still to do. 

And it was comfort in those succeeding days to sit up 
and contemplate the majestic panorama of mountains and 
valleys spread out below us and eat ham and hard boiled 




WHAT CONSTITUTES HAPPINESS. 



141 



eggs while our spiritual natures revelled alternately in rain- 
bows, thunderstorms, and peerless sunsets. Nothing helps 
scenery like ham and eggs. Ham and eggs, and after these a 
pipe — an old, rank, delicious pipe — ham and eggs and scenery, 
a " down grade," a flying coach, a fragrant pipe and a con- 
tented heart — these make happiness. It is what all the ages 
have struggled for. 




CHAPTEE XVIII. 

AT eight in the morning we reached the remnant and ruin 
of what had been the important military station of 
" Camp Floyd," some forty-five or fifty miles from Salt Lake 
City. At four p.m. we had doubled our distance and were 
ninety or a hundred miles from Salt Lake. And now we 
entered upon one of that species of deserts whose concentrated 
hideousness shames the diffused and diluted horrors of Sahara 
— an "alkali" desert. For sixty-eight miles there was but 
one break in it. I do not remember that this was really a 
break ; indeed it seems to me that it was nothing but a water- 
ing depot in the midst of the stretch of sixty-eight miles. If 
my memory serves me, there was no well or spring at this 
place, but the water was hauled there by mule and ox teams 
from the further side of the desert. There was a stage station 
there. It was forty-five miles from the beginning of the 
desert, and twenty-three from the end of it. 

We plowed and dragged and groped along, the whole live- 
long night, and at the end of this uncomfortable twelve hours 
we finished the forty-five-mile part of the desert and got to 
the stage station where the imported water was. The sun 
was just rising. It was easy enough to cross a desert in the 
night while we were asleep ; and it was pleasant to reflect, in 
the morning, that we in actual person had encountered an 
absolute desert and could always speak knowingly of deserts 
in presence of the ignorant thenceforward. And it was pleas- 



A REAL DESERT BY DAYLIGHT. 143 

ant also to reflect that this was not an obscure, back country 
desert, but a very celebrated one, the metropolis itself, as you 
may say. All this was very well and very comfortable and 
satisfactory — but now we were to cross a desert in daylight. 
This was fine — novel — romantic — dramatically adventurous — 
this, indeed, was worth living for, worth traveling for! We 
would write home all about it. 

This enthusiasm, this stern thirst for adventure, wilted 
under the sultry August sun and did not last above one hour. 
One poor little hour — and then we were ashamed that we 
had " gushed " so. The poetry was all in the anticipation — 
there is none in the reality. Imagine a vast, waveless ocean 
stricken dead and turned to ashes ; imagine this solemn waste 
tufted with ash-dusted sage-bushes ; imagine the lifeless silence 
and solitude that belong to such a place ; imagine a coach, 
creeping like a bug through the midst of this shoreless level, 
and sending up tumbled volumes of dust as if it were a bug 
that went by steam ; imagine this aching monotony of toiling 
and plowing kept up hour after hour, and the shore still as far 
away as ever, apparently ; imagine team, driver, coach and 
passengers so deeply coated with ashes that they are all one 
colorless color ; imagine ash-drifts roosting above moustaches 
and eyebrows like snow accumulations on boughs and bushes. 
This is the reality of it. 

The sun beats down with dead, blistering, relentless 
malignity ; the perspiration is welling from every pore in man 
and beast, but scarcely a sign of it finds its way to the surface 
— it is absorbed before it gets there ; there is not the faintest 
breath of air stirring ; there is not a merciful shred of cloud 
in all the brilliant firmament ; there is not a living creature 
visible in any direction whither one searches the blank level 
that stretches its monotonous miles on every hand ; there is 
not a sound — not a sigh — not a whisper — not a buzz, or a whir 
of wings, or distant pipe of bird — not even a sob from the 
lost souls that doubtless people that dead air. And so the 
occasional sneezing of the resting mules, and the champing of 



144 ROMANCE DISPELLED. 

the bits, grate harshly on the grim stillness, not dissipating 
the spell but accenting it and making one feel more lonesome 
and forsaken than before. 

The mules, under violent swearing, coaxing and whip- 
cracking, would make at stated intervals a " spurt," and drag 
the coach a hundred or may be two hundred yards, stirring 
up a billowy cloud of dust that rolled back, enveloping the 
vehicle to the wheel-tops or higher, and making it seem afloat 
in a fog. Then a rest followed, with the usual sneezing and 
bit-champing. Then another " spurt " of a hundred yards and 
another rest at the end of it. All day long we kept this up, 
without water for the mules and without ever changing the 
team. At least we kept it up ten hours, which, I take it, is a 
day, and a pretty honest one, in an alkali desert. It was f 'om 
four in the morning till two in the afternoon. And it was so 
hot ! and so close ! and our water canteens went dry in the 
middle of the day and we got so thirsty ! It was so stupid 
and tiresome and dull ! and the tedious hours did lag and 
drag and limp along with such a cruel deliberation ! It was 
so trying to give one's watch a good long undisturbed spell 
and then take it out and find that it had been fooling away 
the time and not trying to get ahead any ! The alkali dust 
cut through our lips, it persecuted our eyes, it ate through the 
delicate membranes and made our noses bleed and kept them 
bleeding — and truly and seriously the romance all faded far 
away and disappeared, and left the desert trip nothing but a 
harsh reality — a thirsty, sweltering, longing, hateful reality ! 

Two miles and a quarter an hour for ten hours — that was 
what we accomplished. It was hard to bring the comprehen- 
sion away down to such a snail-pace as that, when we r»ad been 
used to making eight and ten miles an hour. When we 
reached the station on the farther verge of the desert, ^e were 
glad, for the first time, that the dictionary was along, because 
we never could have found language to tell how glad we were, 
in any sort of dictionary but an unabridged one with pictures 
in it. But there could not have been found in a whole library 



A BEAUTIFUL THING DISPOSED OF. 



145 



cf dictionaries language sufficient to tell how tired those mules 
were after their twenty-three mile puL. To try to give the 
reader an idea of how thirsty they were, would be to "gild 
refined gold or paint the lily." 

Somehow, now that it is there, the quotation does not 
seem to fit — but no matter, let it stay, anyhow. I think it is 
a graceful and attractive thing, and therefore have tried time 
and time again to work it in where it would fit, but could not 
succeed. These efforts have kept my mind distracted and ill 
at ease, and made my narrative seem broken and disjointed, 
in places. Under these circumstances it seems to me best to 
leave it in, as above, since this will afford at least a temporary 
respite from the wear and tear of trying to " lead up " to this 
really apt and beautiful quotation. 

10f 




tmm 



ISr/iih 



CHAPTER XIX. 

O^N" the morning of the sixteenth day out^fer^St. Joseph 
we arrived at the entrance of RockjL.&a'&ftn, two hun- 
dred and fifty miles from Salt Lake. It was along in this 
wild country somewhere, and far from any habitation of white 
men, except the stage stations, that we came across the wretch- 
edest type of mankind I have ever seen, up to this writing. I 
refer to the Goshoot Indians. From what we could see and 
all we could learn, they are very considerably inferior to even 
the despised Digger Indians of California ; inferior to all races 
of savages on our continent ; inferior to even the Terra del 
Fuegans ; inferior to the Hottentots, and actually inferior in 
some respects to the Kytches of Africa. Indeed, I have been 
obliged to look the bulky volumes of Wood's " Uncivilized 
Races of Men " clear through in order to find a savage tribe 
degraded enough to take rank with the Goshoots. I find but 
one people fairly open to that shameful verdict. It is the Bos^ 
jesmans (Bushmen) of South Africa. Such of the Goshoots 
as we saw, along the road and hanging about the stations, 
were small, lean, " scrawny " creatures ; in complexion a dull 
black like the ordinary American negro ; their faces and hands 
bearing dirt which they had been hoarding and accumulating 
for months, years, and even generations, according to the age 
of the proprietor ; a silent, sneaking, treacherous looking race ; 
taking note of everything, covertly, like all the other " Noble 
Red Men " that we (do not) read about, and betraying no sign in 
their countenances ; indolent, everlastingly patient and tireless, 
like all other Indians ; prideless beggars — for if the beggar in- 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GOSHOOTS. 



147 



stinct were left out of an Indian he would not " go," any more 
than a clock without a pendulum ; hungry, always hungry, 
and yet never refusing anything that a hog would eat, though 
often eating what a hog would decline ; hunters, but having 

no higher 
V V ,; '15M\ -fiS^'-' JJjB JPii ambition 

fc ^ % '^^a/^Sib- ' *N^ -"fiB tlian t0 kiU 

fmlK '*<^k'"j^2*\ and eat jack- 

ass rabbits, 




GOSHOOT INDIANS HANGING AROUND STATIONS. 

crickets and grasshoppers, and embezzle carrion from the buz- 
zards and cayotes ; savages who, when asked if they have the 
common Indian belief in a Great Spirit show a something 
which almost amounts to emotion, thinking whiskey is referred 
to ; a thin, scattering race of almost naked black children, these 
Goshoots are, who produce nothing at all, and have no villages, 
and no gatherings together into strictly denned tribal com- 
munities — a people whose only shelter is a rag cast on a bush 
to keep oif a portion of the snow, and yet who inhabit one of 
the most rocky, wintry, repulsive wastes that our country or 
any other can exhibit. 

The Bushmen and our Goshoots are manifestly descended 
from the self-same gorilla, or kangaroo, or Norway rat, which- 
ever animal- Adam the Darwinians trace them to. 

One would as soon expect the rabbits to fight as the 



14:8 A BRAVE DRIVER AND TERRIFIED JUDGE. 

Goslioots, and yet they used to live off the offal and refuse 
of the stations a few months and then come some dark 
night when no mischief was expected, and burn down the 
buildings and kill the men from ambush as they rushed 
out. And once, in the night, they attacked the stage-coach 
when a District Judge, of Nevada Territory, was the only 
passenger, and with their first volley of arrows (and a bullet 
or two) they riddled the stage curtains, wounded a horse or 
two and mortally wounded the driver. The latter was full 
of pluck, and so was his passenger. At the driver's call 
Judge Mott swung himself out, clambered to the box and 
seized the reins of the team, and away they plunged, through 
the racing mob of skeletons and under a hurtling storm of 
missiles. The stricken driver had sunk down on the boot as 
soon as he was wounded, but had held on to the reins and 
said he would manage to keep hold of them until relieved. 

And after they 
were taken from 
his relaxing 
grasp, he lay with 
his head between 
Judge Mott's 
feet, and tran- 
quilly gave direc- 
tions about the 
road; he said he 
believed he could 
live till the mis- 
creants were out- 
run and left be- 
hind, and that if 
he managed that, 

THE DKIYK FOB LITE. ^ main difficulty 

would be at an end, and then if the Judge drove so and so 
(giving directions about bad places in the road, and general 
course) he would reach the next station without trouble. The 
Judge distanced the enemy and at last rattled up to the 
station and knew that the night's perils were done; but 




THE RED MEN SLANDERED. 149 

there was no comrade-in-arms for him to rejoice with, for the 
soldierly driver was dead. 

Let us forget that we have been saying harsh things about 
the Overland drivers, now. The disgust which the Goshoots 
gave me, a disciple of Cooper and a worshipper of the Red 
Man — even of the scholarly savages in the " Last of the Mo- 
hicans" who are fittingly associated with backwoodsmen 
who divide each sentence into two equal parts : one part crit- 
ically grammatical, refined and choice of language, and the 
other part just such an attempt to talk like a hunter or a 
mountaineer, as a Broadway clerk might make after eating an 
edition of Emerson Bennett's works and studying frontier 
life at the Bowery Theatre a couple of weeks — I say that the 
nausea which the Goshoots gave me, an Indian worshipper, 
set me to examining authorities, to see if perchance I had been 
over-estimating the Red Man while viewing him through the 
mellow moonshine of romance. The revelations that came 
were disenchanting. It was curious to see how quickly the 
paint and tinsel fell away from him and left him treacherous, 
filthy and repulsive — and how quickly the evidences accumu- 
lated that wherever one finds an Indian tribe he has only 
found Goshoots more or less modified by circumstances and 
surroundings — but Goshoots, after all. They deserve pity, 
poor creatures; and they can have mine — at this distance. 
Nearer by, they never get anybody's. 

There is an impression abroad that the Baltimore and 
Washington Railroad Company and many of its employes are 
Goshoots ; but it is an error. There is only a plausible resem- 
blance, which, while it is apt enough to mislead the ignorant, 
cannot deceive parties who have contemplated both tribes. 
But seriously, it was not only poor wit, but very wrong to 
start the report referred to above ; for however innocent the 
motive may have been, the necessary effect was to injure the 
reputation of a class who have a hard enough time of it in the 
pitiless deserts of the Rocky Mountains, Heaven knows ! If 
we cannot find it in our hearts to give those poor naked crea- 
tures our Christian sympathy and compassion, in God's name 
let us at least not throw mud at them. 



CHAPTEE XX. 

ON the seventeenth day we passed the highest mountain 
peaks we had yet seen, and although the day was very 
warm the night that followed upon its heels was wintry cold 
and blankets were next to useless. 

On the eighteenth day we encountered the eastward-bound 
telegraph-constructors at Reese River station and sent a mes- 
sage to his Excellency Gov. Nye at Carson City (distant one 
hundred and fifty-six miles). 

On the nineteenth day we crossed the Great American 
Desert — forty memorable miles of bottomless sand, into which 
the coach wheels sunk from six inches to a foot. We worked 
our passage most of the way across. That is to say, we got 
out and walked. It was a dreary pull and a long and thirsty 
one, for we had no water. From one extremity of this desert 
to the other, the road was white with the bones of oxen and 
horses. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that we 
could have walked the forty miles and set our feet on a bone 
at every step! The desert was one prodigious graveyard. 
And the log-chains, wagon tyres, and rotting wrecks of vehi- 
cles were almost as thick as the bones. I think we saw log- 
chains enough rusting there in the desert, to reach across any 
State in the Union. Do not these relics suggest something of 
an idea of the fearful suffering and privation the early emi- 
grants to California endured ? 

At the border of the Desert lies Carson Lake, or The 
" Sink " of the Carson, a shallow, melancholy sheet of water 



A BALD-HEADED ANECDOTE. 



151 



some eighty or a hundred miles in circumference. Carson 
River empties into it and is lost — sinks mysteriously into the 
earth and never appears in the light of the sun again — for the 
lake has no outlet whatever. 

There are several rivers in Nevada, and they all have this 
mysterious fate. They end in various lakes or " sinks," and 
that is the last of them. Carson Lake, Humboldt Lake, 
Walker Lake, Mono Lake, are all great sheets of water with- 
out any visible outlet. Water is always flowing into them ; 
none is ever seen 



to flow out of them, 
and yet they re- 
main always level 
full, neither reced- 
ing nor overflowing. 
What they do with 
their surplus is 
only known to the 
Creator. 

On the western 
verge of the Desert 
we halted a moment 
at Eagtown. It con- 
sisted of one log- 
house and is not set 
down on the map. 

This reminds me 
of a circumstance. Just after we left Julesburg, on the Platte, 
I was sitting with the driver, and he said : 

" I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you 
would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road 
once. When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, 
Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placer- 
ville and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk 
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach 
bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the 
buttons all off of Horace's coat, and finally shot his head clean 




GREELEY'S BIDE. 



152 THE ANECDOTE REPEATED. 

through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank 
Monk and begged him to go easier — said he warn't in as much 
of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said, 
c Keep your seat, Horace, and I'll get you there on time ' — 
and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him ! " 

A day or two after that we picked up a Denver man at 
the cross roads, and he told us a good deal about the country 
and the Gregory Diggings. He seemed a very entertaining 
person and a man well posted in the affairs of Colorado. By 
and by he remarked : 

" I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would 
like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. 
When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank 
Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville 
and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk 
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach 
bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the 
buttons all off of Horace's coat, and finally shot his head clean 
through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank 
Monk and begged him to go easier — said he warn't in as much 
of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said, 
' Keep your seat, Horace, and I'll get you there on time ! ' — 
and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him ! " 

At Fort Bridger, some days after this, we took on board a 
cavalry sergeant, a very proper and soldierly person indeed. 
From no other man during the whole journey, did we gather 
such a store of concise and well-arranged military information. 
It was surprising to find in the desolate wilds of our country 
a man so thoroughly acquainted with everything useful to 
know in his line of life, and yet of such inferior rank and un- 
pretentious bearing. For as much as three hours we listened 
to him with unabated interest. Finally he got upon the sub- 
ject of trans-continental travel, and presently said : 

" I can tell you a very laughable thing indeed, if you would 
like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. 
When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank 
Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and 



AN INTERESTING REPETITION. 153 

was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk cracked 
his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach bounced 
up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons 
all off of Horace's coat, and finally shot his head clean through 
the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk and 
begged him to go easier — said he warn't in as much of a hurry 
as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said, ' Keep your 
seat, Horace, and I'll get you there on time ! ' — and you bet you 
he did, too, what was left of him ! " 

When we were eight hours out from Salt Lake City a 
Mormon preacher got in with us at a way station — a gentle, 
soft-spoken, kindly man, and one whom any stranger would 
warm to at first sight. I can never forget the pathos that was 
in his voice as he told, in simple language, the story of his 
people's wanderings and unpitied sufferings. No pulpit elo- 
quence was ever so moving and so beautiful as this outcast's 
picture of the first Mormon pilgrimage across the plains, 
struggling sorrowfully onward to the land of its banishment 
and marking its desolate way with graves and watering it with 
tears. His words so wrought upon us that it was a relief to 
us all when the conversation drifted into a more cheerful chan- 
nel and the natural features of the curious country we were in 
came under treatment. One matter after another was pleas- 
antly discussed, and at length the stranger said : 

" I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would 
like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. 
When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank 
Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture in Placerville, 
and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk 
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach 
bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the 
buttons all off of Horace's coat, and finally shot his head clean 
through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank 
Monk and begged him to go easier — said he warn't in as much 
of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said, 
' Keep your seat, Horace, and I'll get you there on time ! '— ' 
and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him ! " 



15± 



A GRATEFUL STRANGER 



Ten miles out of Kagtown we found a poor wanderer who 
had lain down to die. He had walked as long as he could, 
but his limbs had failed him at last. Hunger and fatigue 
had conquered him. It would have been inhuman to leave 
him there. We paid his fare to Carson and lifted him 
into the coach. It was some little time before he showed any 
very decided signs of life ; but by dint of chafing him and 
pouring brandy between his lips we finally brought him to a 
languid consciousness. Then we fed him a little, and by and 
by he seemed to comprehend the situation and a grateful 
light softened his eye. We made his mail-sack bed as com- 
fortable as possible, and constructed a pillow for him with our 
coats. He seemed very thankful. Then he looked up in our 
faces, and said in a feeble voice that had a tremble of honest 
emotion in it : 

" Gentlemen, I know not who you are, but you have saved 
my life ; and although I can never be able to repay you for it, I 

feel that I can 
at least make 
one hour of your 
long journey 
lighter. I take 
it you are strang- 
ers to this great 
thoroughfare, 
but I am entire- 
ly familiar with 
it. In this con- 
nection I can 
tell you a most 
laughable thing 
indeed, if you 




BOTTLING AN ANECDOTE. 



would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley — " 

I said, impressively : 

" Suffering stranger, proceed at your peril. You see in me 
the melancholy wreck of a once stalwart and magnificent man- 
hood. What has brought me to this ? That thing which you 



A FAMOUS AND IMMORTAL ADVENTURE. 155 

are about to tell. Gradually but surely, that tiresome old 
anecdote has sapped my strength, undermined my constitu- 
tion, withered my life. Pity my helplessness. Spare me 
only just this once, and tell me about young George Wash- 
ington and his little hatchet for a change." 

We were saved. But not so the invalid. In trying to 
retain the anecdote in his system he strained himself and 
died in our arms. 

I am aware, now, that I ought not to have asked of the 
sturdiest citizen of all that region, what I asked of that mere 
shadow of a man ; for, after seven years' residence on the Pa- 
cific coast, I know that no passenger or driver on the Overland 
ever corked that anecdote in, when a stranger was by, and sur- 
vived. Within a period of six years I crossed and recrossed the 
Sierras between Nevada and California thirteen times by stage 
and listened to that deathless incident four hundred and eighty- 
one or eighty-two times. I have the list somewhere. Drivers 
always told it, conductors told it, landlords told it, chance 
passengers told it, the very Chinamen and vagrant Indians 
recounted it. I have had the same driver tell it to me two 
or three times in the same afternoon. It has come to me in 
all the multitude of tongues that Babel bequeathed to earth, 
and flavored with whiskey, brandy, beer, cologne, sozodont, 
tobacco, garlic, onions, grasshoppers — everything that has a fra- 
grance to it through all the long list of things that are gorged 
or guzzled by the sons of men. I never have smelt any anec- 
dote as often as I have smelt that one ; never have smelt any 
anecdote that smelt so variegated as that one. And you never 
could learn to know it by its smell, because every time you 
thought you had learned the smell of it, it would turn up with 
a different smell. Bayard Taylor has written about this hoary 
anecdote, Richardson has published it ; so have Jones, Smith, 
Johnson, Poss Browne, and every other correspondence-indit- 
ing being that ever set his foot upon the great overland road 
anywhere between Julesburg and San Francisco ; and I have 
heard that it is in the Talmud. I have seen it in print in 
nine different foreign languages ; I have been told that it is 



15G ALAS! AN INFAMOUS FALSEHOOD. 

employed in the inquisition in Rome ; and I now learn with 
regret that it is going to be set to music. I do not think that 
such things are right. 

Stage-coaching on the Overland is no more, and stage 
drivers are a race defunct. I wonder if they bequeathed that 
bald-headed anecdote to their successors, the railroad brake- 
men and conductors, and if these latter still persecute the 
helpless passenger with it until he concludes, as did many a 
tourist of other days, that the real grandeurs of the Pacific coast 
are not Yo Semite and the Big Trees, but Hank Monk and 
his adventure with Horace Greeley.* 

*And what makes that worn anecdote the more aggravating, is, that 
the adventure it celebrates never occurred. If it were a good anecdote, 
that seeming demerit would be its chiefest virtue, for creative power be- 
longs to greatness ; but what ought to be done to a man who would wantonly 
contrive so flat a one as this ? If J were to suggest what ought to be done 
to him, I should be called extravagant — but what does the sixteenth chap- 
ter of Daniel say? Aha 




OHAPTEE XXI. 

~YTT~E were approaching the end of our long journey. It 
V V W as the morning of the twentieth day. At noon we 
would reach Carson City, the capital of Nevada Territory. 
"We were not glad, but sorry. It had been a fine pleasure 
trip ; we had fed fat on wonders every day ; we were now 
well accustomed to stage life, and very fond of it ; so the idea 
of coming to a stand-still and settling down to a humdrum 
existence in a village was not agreeable, but on the contrary 
depressing. 

Visibly our new home was a desert, walled in by barren, 
enow-clad mountains. There was not a tree in sight. There 
was no vegetation but the endless sage-brush and greasewood. 
All nature was gray with it. We were plowing through 
great deeps of powdery alkali dust that rose in thick clouds 
and floated across the plain like smoke from a burning house. 
We were coated with it like millers ; so were the coach, the 
mules, the mail-bags, the driver — we and the sage-brush and 
the other scenery were all one monotonous color. Long trains 
of freight wagons in the distance enveloped in ascending 
masses of dust suggested pictures of prairies on fire. These 
teams and their masters were the only life we saw. Other- 
wise we moved in the midst of solitude, silence and desolation. 
Every twenty steps we passed the skeleton of some dead 
beast of burthen, with its dust-coated skin stretched tightly 
over its empty ribs. Frequently a solemn raven sat upon the 




(.58 ARRIVED AT CARSON CITY. 

ekull or the hips and contemplated the passing coach with 
meditative serenity. 

By and by Carson City was pointed ont to us. It nestled 
in the edge of a great plain and was a sufficient number of 

miles away to look like an assemblage 
of mere white spots in the shadow of 
a grim range of mountains overlook- 
ing it, whose summits seemed lifted 
clear out of companionship and con- 
sciousness of earthly things. 

We arrived, disembarked, and the 
stage went on. It was a " wooden" 
town ; its population two thousand 
^templation. souls. The main street consisted of 

four or five blocks of little white frame stores which were too 
high to sit down on, but not too high for various other purposes ; 
in fact, hardly high enough. They were packed close together, 
side by side, as if room were scarce in that mighty plain. The 
sidewalk was of boards that were more or less loose and 
inclined to rattle when walked upon. In the middle of the 
town, opposite the stores, was the " plaza " which is native to 
all towns beyond the Rocky Mountains — a large, unfenced, 
level vacancy, with a liberty pole in it, and very useful as a 
place for public auctions, horse trades, and mass meetings, and 
likewise for teamsters to camp in. Two other sides of the 
plaza were faced by stores, offices and stables. The rest of 
Carson City was pretty scattering. 

We were introduced to several citizens, at the stage-office 
and on the way up to the Governor's from the hotel — among 
others, to a Mr. Harris, who was on horseback ; he began to 
say something, but interrupted himself with the remark : 

" I'll have to get you to excuse me a minute ; yonder is the 
witness that swore I helped to rob the California coach — a 
piece of impertinent intermeddling, sir, for I am not even 
acquainted with the man." 

Then he rode over and began to rebuke the stranger with 
a six-shooter, and the stranger began to explain with another. 



FIRST DAT OF SIGHT-SEEING, 



150 



When the pistols were emptied, the stranger resumed his work 
(mending a whip-lash), and Mr. Harris rode by with a polite 
nod, homeward bound, with a bullet through one of his lungs, 
and several in his hips ; and from them issued little rivulets 
of blood that coursed down the horse's sides and made the 
animal look quite picturesque. I never saw Harris shoot a 
man after that but it recalled to mind that first day in Carson. 
This was all we saw that day, for it was two o'clock, now, 
and according to custom the daily "Washoe Zephyr" set in; 
a soaring dust-drift about the size of the United States set up 
edgewise came with it, and the capital of Nevada Territory 




THE WASHOE ZEPHYR. 



disappeared from view. Still, there were sights to be seen 
which were not wholly uninteresting to new coiners ; for the 
vast dust cloud was thickly freckled with things strange to the 
upper air — things living and dead, that flitted hither and 
thither, going and coming, appearing and disappearing among 



160 A WASHOE ZEPHYR AT PLAY. 

the rolling billows of dust — hats, chickens and parasols sailing 
in the remote heavens; blankets, tin signs, sage-brush and 
shingles a shade lower; door-mats and buffalo robes lower 
still ; shovels and coal scuttles on the next grade ; glass doors, 
cats and little children on the next; disrupted lumber yards, 
light buggies and wheelbarrows on the next ; and down only 
thirty or forty feet above ground was a scurrying storm of 
emigrating roofs and vacant lots. 

It was something to see that much. I could have seen 
more, if I could have kept the dust out of my eyes. 

But seriously a Washoe wind is by no means a trifling 
matter. It blows flimsy houses down, lifts shingle roofs oc- 
casionally, rolls up tin ones like sheet music, now and then 
blows a stage coach over and spills the passengers ; and tra- 
dition says the reason there are so many bald people there, is, 
that the wind blows the hair off their heads while they are 
looking skyward after their hats. Carson streets seldom look 
inactive on Summer afternoons, because there are so many 
citizens skipping around their escaping hats, like chamber- 
maids trying to head off a spider. 

The "Washoe Zephyr" (Washoe is a pet nickname for 
Nevada) is a peculiarly Scriptural wind, in that no man 
knoweth " whence it cometh." That is to say, where it origi- 
nates. It comes right over the mountains from the West, but 
when one crosses the ridge he does not find any of it on the 
other side ! It probably is manufactured on the mountain-top 
for the occasion, and starts from there. It is a pretty regular 
w T ind, in the summer time. Its office hours are from two in 
the afternoon till two the next morning ; and anybody ventur- 
ing abroad during those twelve hours needs to allow for the 
wind or he will bring up a mile or two to leeward of the 
point he is aiming at. And yet the first complaint a Washoe 
visitor to San Francisco makes, is that the sea winds blow so, 
there ! There is a good deal of human nature in that. 

We found the state palace of the Governor of Nevada 
Territory to consist of a white frame one-story house with two 
small rooms in it and a stanchion supported shed in front — for 



OFFICIAL HEAD-QUARTERS. 



161 



grandeur — it compelled the respect of the citizen and inspired 
the Indians with awe. The newly arrived Chief and Associate 
Justices of the Territory, and other machinery of the govern- 
ment, were domiciled with less splendor. They were boarding 
around privately, and had their offices in their bedrooms. 

The Secretary and I took quarters in the " ranch " of a 
worthy French lady by the name of Bridget O'Flannigan, a 
camp follower of his Excellency the Governor. She had 
known him in his prosperity as commander-in-chief of the 
Metropolitan Police of New York, and she would not desert 




THE GOVEKNOK S HOUSE. 



him in his adversity as Governor of Nevada. Our room was 
on the lower floor, facing the plaza, and when we had got our 
bed, a small table, two chairs, the government fire-proof safe, 
and the Unabridged Dictionary into it, there was still room 
enough left for a visitor — may be two, but not without strain- 
ing the walls. But the walls could stand it — at least the par^ 
titions could, for they consisted simply of one thickness of 
white " cotton domestic " stretched from corner to corner of 
the room. This was the rule in Carson — any other kind of 
partition was the rare exception. And if you stood in a dark 



102 



LUXURIOUS ACCOMMODATIONS. 



room and your neighbors in the next had lights, the shadows 
on your canvas told queer secrets sometimes ! Very often 

these partitions 
were made of old 
flour sacks basted 
together ; and then 
the difference be- 
tween the common 
herd and the aris- 
tocracy was, that the 
common herd had 
unornamented 
sacks, while the 
walls of the aris- 
tocrat were over- 
powering with ru- 
dimental fresco — 
i. £., red and blue 
mill brands on the 
flour sacks. Occasionally, also, the better classes embellished 
their canvas by pasting pictures from Harper's Weekly on them. 
In many cases, too, the wealthy and the cultured rose to spit- 
toons and other evidences of a sumptuous and luxurious taste.* 
We had a carpet and a genuine queen' s-ware washbowl. Con- 
sequently we were hated without reserve by the other tenants 
of the O'Flannigan " ranch." When we added a painted oil- 
cloth window curtain, we simply took our lives into our own 
hands. To prevent bloodshed I removed up stairs and took 
up quarters with the untitled plebeians in one of the fourteen 
white pine cot-bedsteads that stood in two long ranks in the 
one sole room of which the second story consisted. 

It was a jolly company, the fourteen. They were princi- 
pally voluntary camp-followers of the Governor, who had 
joined his retinue by their own election at New York and 




DAKK DISCLOSURES. 



* Washoe people take a joke so hard that I must explain that the above 
description was only the rule ; there were many honorable exceptions in 
Carson — plastered ceilings and houses that had considerable furniture in 
them.— M. T. 



MRS. O'FLANNIGAN'S BOARDERS. 



163 



San Francisco and came along, feeling that in the scuffle for 
little territorial crumbs and offices they could not make their 
condition more precarious than it was, and might reasonably 
expect to make it better. They were popularly known as the 
" Irish Brigade," though there were only four or five Irish- 
men among all the Governor's retainers. His good-natured 




THE IRISH BRIGADE. 



Excellency was much annoyed at the gossip his henchmen 
created — especially when there arose a rumor that they were 
paid assassins of his, brought along to quietly reduce the 
democratic vote when desirable ! 

Mrs. O'Flannigan was boarding and lodging them at ten 
dollars a week apiece, and they were cheerfully giving their 
notes for it. They were perfectly satisfied, but Bridget pres- 
ently found that notes that could not be discounted were but 
a feeble constitution for a Carson boarding-house. So she 
began to harry the Governor to find employment for the 
" Brigade." Her importunities and theirs together drove him 
to a gentle desperation at last, and he finally summoned the 
Brigade to the presence. Then, said he : 



164: EMTLOYMENT FOR THE BRIGADE. 

" Gentlemen, I have planned a lucrative and useful service 
for you — a service which will provide you with recreation amid 
noble landscapes, and afford you never ceasing opportunities 
for enriching your minds by observation and study. I want 
you to survey a railroad from Carson City westward to a cer- 
tain point ! When the legislature meets I will have the neces- 
sary bill passed and the remuneration arranged." 

" What, a railroad over the Sierra Nevada Mountains ? " 
"Well, then, survey it eastward to a. certain point! " 
He converted them into surveyors, chain-bearers and so 
on, and turned them loose in the desert. It was " recreation " 
with a vengeance ! Recreation on foot, lugging chains through 
sand and sage-brush, under a sultry sun and among cattle bones, 
cayotes and tarantulas. "Romantic 
adventure " could go no further. They 
surveyed very slowly,very deliberately, 
very carefully. They returned every 
night during the first week, dusty, 
footsore, tired, and hungry, but very 
jolly. They brought in great store 
of prodigious hairy spiders — tarantu- 
-— ^/cT^SW*^- i as — an( j imprisoned them in covered 

recreation. tumblers up stairs in the "ranch." 

After the first week, they had to camp on the field, for they 
were getting well eastward. They made a good many in- 
quiries as to the location of that indefinite " certain point," but 
got no information. At last, to a peculiarly urgent inquiry 
of " How far eastward % " Governor Nye telegraphed back : 

" To the Atlantic Ocean, blast you ! — and then bridge it 
and go on ! " 

This brought back the dusty toilers, who sent in a report 
and ceased from their labors. The Governor was always com- 
fortable about it ; he said Mrs. O'Flannigan would hold him 
for the Brigade's board anyhow, and he intended to get what 
entertainment he could out of the boys ; he said, with his old- 
time pleasant twinkle, that he meant to survey them into Utah 
and then telegraph Brigham to hang them for trespass ! 





TIIE TAKANTULA. 



THE TARANTULAS LOOSE. 165 

The surveyors brought back more tarantulas with them, 
and so we had quite a menagerie arranged along the shelves 
of the room. Some of these spiders could straddle over a 
common saucer with their hairy, muscular legs, and when 
their feelings were hurt, or their dignity offended, they were 
the wickedest-looking desperadoes the animal world can fur- 

nish. If their glass pris- 
on-houses were touched 
ever so lightly they 
were up and spoiling 
for a fight in a minute. 
Starchy ? — proud % In- 
deed, they would take 
up a straw and pick their teeth like a member of Congress. 
There was as usual a furious "zephyr" blowing the first 
night of the brigade's return, and about midnight the roof 
of an adjoining stable blew off, and a corner of it came crash- 
ing through the side of our ranch. There was a simultane- 
ous awakening, and a tumultuous muster of the brigade in 
the dark, and a general tumbling and sprawling over each 
other in the narrow aisle between the bed-rows. In the 

midst of the turmoil, Bob H sprung up out of a sound 

sleep, and knocked down a shelf with his head. Instantly he 
shouted : 

" Turn out, boys — the tarantulas is loose ! " 
No warning ever sounded so dreadful. Nobody tried, any 
longer, to leave the room, lest he might step on a tarantula. 
Every man groped for a trunk or a bed, and jumped on it. 
Then followed the strangest silence — a silence of grisly sus- 
pense it was, too — waiting, expectancy, fear. It was as dark 
as pitch, and one had to imagine the spectacle of those four- 
teen scant-clad men roosting gingerly on trunks and beds, for 
not a thing could be seen. Then came occasional little inter- 
ruptions of the silence, and one could recognize a man and 
tell his locality by his voice, or locate any other sound a suf- 
ferer made by his gropings or changes of position. The occa- 
sional voices were not given to much speaking — you simply 



166 MRS. O'FLANNIGAN COMES TO THE RESCUE. 

heard a gentle ejaculation of " Ow ! " followed by a solid 
tliuinp, and you knew the gentleman had felt a hairy blanket 
or something touch his bare skin and had skipped from a bed 
to the floor. Another silence. Presently you would hear a 
gasping voice say : 

" Su-su-something's crawling up the back of my neck ! " 

Every now and then you could hear a little subdued scram- 
ble and a sorrowful " O Lord ! " and then you knew that some- 
body was getting away from something he took for a taran- 
tula, and not losing any time about it, either. Directly a voice 
in the corner rang out wild and clear : 

" I've got him ! I've got him ! " [Pause, and probable 
change of circumstances.] " No, he's got me ! Oh, ain't they 
never going to fetch a lantern ! " 

The lantern came at that moment, in the hands of Mrs. 
O'Flannigan, whose anxiety to know the amount of damage 




LIGHT THROWN ON THE SUBJECT. 



done by the assaulting roof had not prevented her waiting a 
judicious interval, after getting out of bed and lighting up, to 



ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 167 

see if the wind was done, now, up stairs, or had a larger con- 
tract. 

The landscape presented when the lantern flashed into the 
room was picturesque, and might have been funny to some 
people, but was not to us. Although we were perched so 
strangely upon boxes, trunks and beds, and so strangely at- 
tired, too, we were too earnestly distressed and too genuinely 
miserable to see any fun about it, and there was not the sem- 
blance of a smile anywhere visible. I know I am not capa- 
ble of suffering more than I did during those few minutes of 
suspense in the dark, surrounded by those creeping, bloody- 
minded tarantulas. I had skipped from bed to bed and from 
box to box in a cold agony, and every time I touched anything 
that was furzy I fancied I felt the fangs. I had rather go to 
war than live that episode over again. Nobody was hurt. The 
man who thought a tarantula had " got him " was mistaken — 
only a crack in a box had caught his finger. Not one of those 
escaped tarantulas was ever seen again. There were ten or 
twelve of them. We took candles and hunted the place high 
and low for them, but with no success. Did we go back to 
bed then ? We did nothing of the kind. Money could not 
have persuaded us to do it. "We sat up the rest of the night 
playing cribbage and keeping a sharp lookout for the enemy. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

IT was the end of August, and the skies were cloudless and 
the weather superb. In two or three weeks I had grown 
wonderfully fascinated with the curious new country, and 
concluded to put off my return to " the States " awhile. I 
had grown well accustomed to wearing a damaged slouch hat, 
blue woolen shirt, and pants crammed into boot-tops, and 
gloried in the absence of coat, vest and braces. I felt rowdy- 
ish and "bully," (as the historian Josephus phrases it, in his 
fine chapter upon the destruction of the Temple). It seemed 
to me that nothing could be so fine and so romantic. I had 
become an officer of the government, but that was for mere 
sublimity. The office was an unique sinecure. I had nothing 
to do and no salary. I was private Secretary to his majesty 
the Secretary and there was not yet writing enough for two 
of us. So Johnny K and I devoted our time to amuse- 
ment. He was the young son of an Ohio nabob and was out 
there for recreation. He got it. "We had heard a world of 
talk about the marvellous beauty of Lake Tahoe, and finally 
curiosity drove us thither to see it. Three or four members 
of the Brigade had been there and located some timber lands 
on its shores and stored up a quantity of provisions in their 
camp. "We strapped a couple of blankets on our shoulders 
and took an axe apiece and started — for we intended to take 
up a wood ranch or so ourselves and become wealthy. TTe 
were on foot. The reader will find it advantageous to go 
horseback. We were told that the distance was eleven miles. 



BOUND FOR LAKE TAHOE. 



169 



We tramped a long time on level ground, and then toiled 
laboriously up a mountain about a thousand miles high and 
looked over. No lake there. We descended on the other 
side, crossed the valley and toiled up another mountain three 
or four thousand miles high, apparently, and looked over again. 
No lake yet. We sat down tired and perspiring, and hired a 
couple of Chinamen to curse those people who had beguiled 
us. Thus refreshed, we presently resumed the march with 
renewed vigor and determination. We plodded on, two or 
three hours longer, and at last the Lake burst upon us — a 
noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred 
feet above the level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow- 
clad mountain peaks that towered aloft full three thousand feet 
higher still ! It was a vast oval, and one would have to use 
up eighty or a hundred good miles in traveling around it. As 
it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly 
photographed upon its still surface I thought it must surely 
be the fairest picture the whole earth affords. 

We found the small skiff belonging to the Brigade boys r 
and without loss of time 
set out across a deep bend 
of the lake toward the land- 
marks that signified the lo- 
cality of the camp. I got 
Johnny to row — not be- 
cause I mind exertion my- 
self, but because it makes 
me sick to ride backwards 
when I am at work. But 
I steered. A three-mile pull brought us to 
the camp just as the night fell, and we 
stepped ashore very tired and wolfishly hun- 
gry. In a " cache " among the rocks we found 
the provisions and the cooking utensils, and then, all fatigued 
as I was, I sat down on a boulder and superintended while 
Johnny gathered wood and cooked supper. Many a man who 
had gone through what I had, would have wanted to rest. 




I STEEKEl). 



170 



CAMP LIFE AND QUIET CONSCIENCES. 



It was a delicious supper — hot bread, fried bacon, and 
black coffee. It was a delicious solitude we were in, too. 
Three miles away was a saw-mill and some workmen, but 
there were not fifteen other human beings throughout the 
wide circumference of the lake. As the darkness closed down 
and the stars came out and spangled the great mirror with 
jewels, we smoked meditatively in the solemn hush and forgot 
our troubles and our pains. In due time we spread our 
blankets in the warm sand between two large boulders and 
soon feel asleep, careless of the procession of ants that passed 
in through rents in our clothing and explored our persons. 
Nothing could disturb the sleep that fettered us, for it had 
been fairly earned, and if our consciences had any sins on 
them they had to adjourn court for that night, any way. The 
wind rose just as we were losing consciousness, and we were 
Julled to sleep by the beating of the surf upon the shore. 

It is always very cold on that lake shore in the night, but 
we had plenty of blankets and were warm enough. We never 
moved a muscle all night, but waked at 
early dawn in the original positions, and 
got up at once, thoroughly refreshed, 
free from soreness, and brim full of 
friskiness. There is no end of whole- 
some medicine in such an experience. 
That morning we could have whipped 
ten such people as we were the day 
before — sick ones at any rate. But the 
world is slow, and people will go to 
" water cures " and " movement cures " 
and to foreign lands for health. Three 
months of camp life on Lake Tahoe 
would restore an Egyptian mummy to 
his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alligator. 
I do not mean the oldest and driest mummies, of course, but the 
fresher ones. The air up there in the clouds is very pure and 
fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be ? — it is 
the same the angels breathe. I think that hardly any amount 




THE INVALID. 



A PARADISE FOR INVALIDS 



171 



of fatigue can be gathered together that a man cannot sleep off 
in one night on the sand by its side. Not under a roof, but 
under the sky ; it seldom or never rains there in the summer 
time. I know a man who went there to die. But he made a 
failure of it. He was a skeleton when he came, and could 
barely stand. He had no appetite, and did nothing but read 
tracts and reflect on the future. Three months later he was 
sleeping out of doors regularly, eating all he could hold, three 
times a day, and chasing game over mountains three thousand 
feet high for recreation. And he was a skeleton no longer, 
but weighed part of a ton. This is no fancy sketch, but the 
truth. His disease was consumption. I confidently commend 
his experience to other skeletons. 

I superintended again, and as soon as we had eaten break- 
fast we got in the boat and 
skirted along the lake shore 
about three miles and disem- 
barked. We liked the appear- 

the place, and so we 

some three hundred 

it and stuck our " no- 
tices " on a tree. It was yellow 
pine timber land — a dense forest 
of trees a hundred feet high and 
from one to five feet through at 
the butt. It was necessary to 
fence our property or we could 
not hold it. That is to say, it was 
necessary to cut down trees here 
and there and make them fall in 
such a way as to form a sort of 
enclosure (with pretty wide gaps 
in it). "We cut down three trees apiece, and found it such 
heart-breaking work that we decided to "rest our case" on 
those; if they held the property, well and good; if they 
didn't, let the property spill out through the gaps and go ; it 
was no use to work ourselves to death merely to save a few 



ance of 
claimed 
acres of 




'f\vs. 



THE RESTORED. 



172 



SECURING OUR TITLE TO LANDS. 



acres of land. Next day we came back to build a house — 
for a bouse was also necessary, in order to bold tbe property. 
We decided to build a substantial log-bouse and excite tbe 
envy of tbe Brigade boys ; but by the time we bad cut and 
trimmed tbe first log it seemed unnecessary to be so elaborate, 
and so we concluded to build it of saplings. However, two 
saplings, duly cut and trimmed, compelled recognition of the 
fact that a still modester architecture would satisfy the law, 
and so we concluded to build a "brush" house. We devoted 
the next day to this work, but we did so much "sitting 
around " and discussing, that by the middle of the afternoon 
we had achieved only a half-way sort of affair which one of us 

had to watch while the other 



cut brush, lest if both turned 
our backs we might not be 
able to find it again, it had 
such a strong family resem- 
blance to the surrounding 
vegetation. But we were 
satisfied with it. 

We were land owners 
now, duly seized and pos- 
sessed, and within the pro- 
tection of the law. There- 
fore we decided to take up 
our residence on our own 
domain and enjoy that large sense of 
independence which only such an expe- 
rience can bring. Late tbe next after- 
noon, after a good long rest, we sailed 
away from the Brigade camp with all 
the provisions and cooking utensils we could carry off — borrow 
is the more accurate word — and just as the night was falling 
we beached the boat at our own landing. 




OUR HOUSE. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

IF there is any life that is happier than the life we led on our 
timber ranch for the next two or three weeks, it must be 
a sort of life which I have not read of in books or experienced 
in person. We did not see a human being but ourselves during 
the time, or hear any sounds but those that were made by the 
wind and the waves, the sighing of the pines, and now and 
then the far-off thunder of an avalanche. The forest about us 
was dense and cool, the sky above us was cloudless and bril- 
liant with sunshine, the broad lake before us was glassy and 
clear, or rippled and breezy, or black and storm-tossed, accord- 
ing to Nature's mood ; and its circling border of mountain 
domes, clothed with forests, scarred with land-slides, cloven by 
canons and valleys, and helmeted with glittering snow, fitly 
framed and finished the noble picture. The view was always 
fascinating, bewitching, entrancing. The eye was never tired 
of gazing, night or day, in calm or storm ; it suffered but one 
grief, and that was that it could not look always, but must close 
sometimes in sleep. 

We slept in the sand close to the water's edge, between two 
protecting boulders, which took care of the stormy night- winds 
for us. We never took any paregoric to make us sleep. At 
the first break of dawn we were always up and running foot- 
races to tone down excess of physical vigor and exuberance of 
spirits. That is, Johnny was — but I held his hat. While 
smoking the pipe of peace after breakfast we watched the sen- 
tinel peaks put on the glory of the sun, and followed the con- 



m 



LAKE TAHOE. 



quering light as it swept down among the shadows, and set the 
captive crags and forests free. "We watched the tinted pictures 
grow and brighten upon the water till every little detail of 
forest, precipice and pinnacle was wrought in and finished, and 
the miracle of the enchanter complete. Then to " business." 

That is, drifting around in the boat. We were on the 
north shore. There, the rocks on the bottom are sometimes 

gray, sometimes white. 
This gives the marvelous 
transparency of the water 
a fuller advantage than it 
has elsewhere on the lake. 
We usually pushed out a 
hundred yards or so from 
shore, and. then lay down 
on the thwarts, in the 
sun, and let the boat 
drift by the hour whither it would. We 
seldom talked. It interrupted the Sabbath 
stillness, and marred the dreams the luxuri- 
ous rest and indolence brought. The shore 
all along was indented with deep, curved bays and coves, 
bordered by narrow sand-beaches ; and where the sand ended, 
the steep mountain-sides rose right up aloft into space — rose 
up like a vast wall a little out of the perpendicular, and 
thickly wooded with tall pines. 

So singularly clear was the water, that where it was only 
twenty or thirty feet deep the bottom was so perfectly distinct 
that the boat seemed floating in the air ! Yes, where it was 
even eighty feet deep. Every little pebble was distinct, every 
speckled trout, every hand's-breadth of sand. Often, as we lay 
on our faces, a granite boulder, as large as a village church, 
would start out of the bottom apparently, and seem climbing 
up rapidly to the surface, till presently it threatened to touch 
our faces, and we could not resist the impulse to seize an oar 
and avert the danger. But the boat would float on, and the 
boulder descend again, and then we could see that when we 




AT BUSINESS. 



HAPPY INDOLENCE. 175 

had been exactly above it, it must still have been twenty or 
thirty feet below the surface. Down through the transparency 
of these great depths, the water was not merely transparent, 
but dazzlingly, brilliantly so. All objects seen through it had 
a bright, strong vividness, not only of outline, but of every 
minute detail, which they would not have had when seen 
simply through the same depth of atmosphere. So empty and 
airy did all spaces seem below us, and so strong was the sense 
of floating high aloft in mid-nothingness, that we called these 
boat-excursions " balloon- voyages." 

We fished a good deal, but we did not average one fish a 
week. We could see trout by the thousand winging about in 
the emptiness under us, or sleeping in shoals on the bottom, but 
they would not bite — they could see the line too plainly, per- 
haps. We frequently selected the trout we wanted, and rested 
the bait patiently and persistently on the end of his nose at a 
depth of eighty feet, but he would only shake it off with an 
annoyed manner, and shift his position. 

We bathed occasionally, but the water was rather chilly, for 
all it looked so sunny. Sometimes we rowed out to the " blue 
water," a mile or two from shore. It was as dead blue as in- 
digo there, because of the immense depth. By official measure- 
ment the lake in its centre is one thousand five hundred and 
twenty-five feet deep ! 

Sometimes, on lazy afternoons, we lolled on the sand in 
camp, and smoked pipes and read some old well-worn novels. 
At night, by the camp-fire, we played euchre and seven-up to 
strengthen the mind — and played them with cards so greasy 
and defaced that only a whole summer's acquaintance with 
them could enable the student to tell the ace of clubs from the 
jack of diamonds. 

We never slept in our " house." It never recurred to us, 
for one thing ; and besides, it was built to hold the ground, 
and that was enough. We did not wish to strain it. 

By and by our provisions began to run short, and we 
went back to the old camp and laid in a new supply. We 
were gone all day, and reached home again about night-fall, 



176 A CONFLAGRATION. 

pretty tired and hungry. While Johnny was carrying the 
main bulk of the provisions up to our "house" for future use, 
I took the loaf of bread, some slices of bacon, and the coffee-pot, 
ashore, set them down by a tree, lit a fire, and went back to the 
boat to get the frying-pan. While I was at this, I heard a 
shout from Johnny, and looking up I saw that my fire was 
galloping all over the premises ! 

Johnny was on the other side of it. He had to run through 
the flames to get to the lake shore, and then we stood helpless 
and watched the devastation. 

The ground was deeply carpeted with dry pine-needles, and 
the fire touched them off" as if they were gunpowder. It was 
wonderful to see with what fierce speed the tall sheet of flame 
traveled ! My coffee-pot was gone, and everything with it. 
In a minute and a half the fire seized upon a dense growth of 
dry manzanita chapparal six or eight feet high, and then the 
roaring and popping and crackling was something terrific. We 
were driven to the boat by the intense heat, and there we re- 
mained, spell-bound. 

Within half an hour all before us was a tossing, blinding 
tempest of flame ! It went surging up adjacent ridges — sur- 
mounted them and disappeared in the canons beyond — burst 
into view upon higher and farther ridges, presently — shed a 
grander illumination abroad, and dove again — flamed out again, 
directly, higher and still higher up the mountain-side — threw 
out skirmishing parties of fire here and there, and sent them 
trailing their crimson spirals away among remote ramparts 
and ribs and gorges, till as far as the eye could reach the lofty 
mountain-fronts were webbed as it were with a tangled net- 
work of red lava streams. Away across the water the crags 
and domes were lit with a ruddy glare, and the firmament above 
was a reflected hell ! 

Every feature of the spectacle was repeated in the glowing 
mirror of the lake ! Both pictures were sublime, both were 
beautiful ; but that in the lake had a bewildering richness about it 
that enchanted the eye and held it with the stronger fascination. 

We sat absorbed and motionless through four long hours. 




FIRE AT LAKE TAHOE. 



A STORM ON THE LAKE. 177 

Y^e never thought of supper, and never felt fatigue. But at 
eleven o'clock the conflagration had traveled beyond our range 
of vision, and then darkness stole down upon the landscape 
again. 

Hunger asserted itself now, but there was nothing to eat. 
The provisions were all cooked, no doubt, but we did not go 
to see. We were homeless wanderers again, without any pro- 
perty. Our fence was gone, our house burned down ; no in- 
surance. Our pine forest was well scorched, the dead trees all 
burned up, and our broad acres of manzanita swept away. 
Our blankets were on our usual sand-bed, however, and so we 
lay down and went to sleep. The next morning we started 
back to the old camp, but while out a long way from shore, so 
great a storm came up that we dared not try to land. So I 
baled out the seas we shipped, and Johnny pulled heavily 
through the billows till we had reached a point three or four 
miles beyond the camp. The storm was increasing, and it be- 
came evident that it was better to take the hazard of beaching 
the boat than go down in a hundred fathoms of water ; so we 
ran in, with tall white-caps following, and I sat down in the 
stern-sheets and pointed her head-on to the shore. The instant 
the bow struck, a wave came over the stern that washed crew 
and cargo ashore, and saved a deal of trouble. We shivered 
in the lee of a boulder all the rest of the day, and froze all 
the night through. In the morning the tempest had gone 
down, and we paddled down to the camp without any unneces- 
sary delay. We were so starved that we ate up the rest of the 
Brigade's provisions, and then set out to Carson to tell them 
about it and ask their forgiveness. It was accorded, upon 
payment of damages. 

We made many trips to the lake after that, and had many 
a hair-breadth escape and blood-curdling adventure which will 
never be recorded in any history. 

iat 



OHAPTEK XXIT. 

IKES OLYED to have a horse to ride. I had never seen such 
wild, free, magnificent horsemanship outside of a circus 
as these picturesquely-clad Mexicans, Californians and Mexi- 
canized Americans displayed in Carson streets every day. 
How they rode ! Leaning just gently forward out of the per- 
pendicular, easy and nonchalant, with broad slouch-hat brim 
blown square up in front, and long riata swinging above the 
head, they swept through the town like the wind ! The next 
minute they were only a sailing puff of dust on the far desert. 
If they trotted, they sat up gallantly and gracefully, and 
seemed part of the horse ; did not go jiggering up and down 
after the silly Miss-Nancy fashion of the riding-schools. I had 
quickly learned to tell a horse from a cow, and was full of 
anxiety to learn more. I was resolved to buy a horse. 

While the thought was rankling in my mind, the auctioneer 
came skurrying through the plaza on a black beast that had as 
many humps and corners on him as a dromedary, and was 
necessarily uncomely ; but lie was " going, going, at twenty- 
two ! — horse, saddle and bridle at twenty-two dollars, gentle- 
men ! " and I could hardly resist. 

A man whom I did not know (he turned out to be the 
auctioneer's brother) noticed the wistful look in my eye, and 
observed that that was a very remarkable horse to be going at 
such a price ; and added that the saddle alone was worth the 
money. It was a Spanish saddle, with ponderous tapidaros, 
and furnished with the ungainly sole-leather covering with 



A MEXICAN PLUG. 



179 



the unspellable name. I said I had half a notion to bid. 
Then this keen-eyed person appeared to me to be " taking my 
measure " ; but I dismissed the suspicion when he spoke, for his 
manner was full of guileless candor and truthfulness. Said he : 
" I know that horse — know him well. You are a stranger, 
I take it, and so you might think he was an American horse, 




"YOU MIGHT THINK HIM AN AMERICAN HORSE. 



maybe, but I assure you he is not. He is nothing of the kind ; 
but — excuse my speaking in a low voice, other people being 
near — he is, without the shadow of a doubt, a Genuine Mexi- 
can Plug ! " 

I did not know what a Genuine Mexican Plug was, but 
there was something about this man's way of saying it, that 
made me swear inwardly that I would own a Genuine Mexi- 
can Plug, or die. 

"Has he any other — er — advantages?" I inquired, sup- 
pressing what eagerness I could. 



ISO 



MOST THOROUGHLY BUCKED. 



He hooked his forefinger in the pocket of my army-shirt, 
led me to one side, and breathed in my ear impressively these 
words : 

" He can out-buck anything in America ! " 
" Going, going, going — at twent-ty-four dollars and a half, 
(gen — " 

" Twenty-seven ! " I shouted, in a frenzy. 
" And sold ! " said the auctioneer, and passed over the 
Genuine Mexican Plug to me. 

I could scarcely contain my exultation. I paid the money, 
and put the animal in a neighboring livery-stable to dine and 
rest himself. 

In the afternoon I brought the creature into the plaza, 
and certain citizens held him by the head, and others by 

the tail, while I mounted 
him. As soon as they let 
go, he placed all his feet 
in a bunch together, low- 
ered his back, and then 
suddenly arched it upward, 
and shot me straight into 
the air a matter of three 
or four feet! I came as 
straight down again, lit in 
the saddle, went instantly 
up again, came down al* 
most on the high pommel, 
shot up again, and came 
down on the horse's neck- 
all in the space of three or 
four seconds. Then he rose 
and stood almost straight 
up on his hind feet, and I, 
clasping his lean neck des- 
perately, slid back into the saddle, and held on. He came 
down, and immediately hoisted his heels into the air, d eliver- 
ing a vicious kick at the sky, and stood on his forefeet. 




UNEXPECTED ELEVATION. 



OLD ABE CURRY 



181 



And then down he came once more, and began the original 
exercise of shooting me straight up again. The third time I 
went up I heard a stranger say : 

" Oh, don't he buck, though ! " 

While I was up, somebody struck the horse a sounding 
thwack with a leathern strap, and when I arrived again the 
Genuine Mexican Plug was not there. A Californian youth 
chased him up and caught him, and asked if he might have a 
ride. I granted him that luxury. He mounted the Genuine, 
got lifted into the air once, 
out sent his spurs home as 
he descended, and the horse 
darted away like a tele- 
gram. He soared over 
three fences like a bird, 
and disappeared down the 
road toward the Washoe 
Valley. 

I sat down on a stone, 
with a sigh, and by a nat- 
ural impulse one of my 
hands sought my forehead, 
and the other the base of 
my stomach. I believe I 
never appreciated, till then, the poverty of the human ma- 
chinery — for I still needed a hand or two to place elsewhere. 
Pen cannot describe how I was jolted up. Imagination can- 
not conceive how disjointed I was — how internally, externally 
and universally I was unsettled, mixed up and ruptured. 
There was a sympathetic crowd around me, though 

One elderly-looking comforter said : 

" Stranger, you've been taken in. Everybody in this 
camp knows that horse. Any child, any Injun, could have 
told you that he'd buck ; he is the very worst devil to buck on 
the continent of America. You hear me. I'm Curry. Old 
Curry. Old Abe Curry. And moreover, he is a simon-pure, 
out-and-out, genuine d — d Mexican plug, and an uncommon 




UNIVERSALLY UNSETTLED. 



182 



RIDING THE PLUG. 



mean one at that, too. Why, yon turnip, if you had laid low 
and kept dark, there's chances to buy an American horse for 
mighty little more than you paid for that bloody old foreign 
relic." 

I gave no sign ; but I made up my mind that if the 
auctioneer's brother's funeral took place while I was in the 
Territory I would postpone all other recreations and attend it. 
After a gallop of sixteen miles the Californian youth and 
the Genuine Mexican Plug came tearing into town again, 
shedding foam-flakes like the spume-spray that drives before a 
typhoon, and, with one final skip over a wheelbarrow and a 
Chinaman, cast anchor in front of the " ranch." 

Such panting and blowing ! Such spreading and contract- 
ing of the red equine nostrils, and glaring of the wild equine 
eye! But was the imperial beast subjugated? Indeed he 

was not. 
His lord- 
sh ip the 
Speaker of 
the House 
thought he 
was, and 
mounted 
him to go 
down to the 
Capitol; but 
the first 
dash the 
creature 

made was over a pile of telegraph poles half as high as a 
church; and his time to the Capitol — one mile and three 
quarters — remains unbeaten to this day. But then he took an 
advantage — he left out the mile, and only did the three quar- 
ters. That is to say, he made a straight cut across lots, prefer- 
ring fences and ditches to a crooked road; and when the 
Speaker got to the Capitol he said he had been in the air so 
much he felt as if he had made the trip on a comet. 




RIDING THE PLUG. 



EFFORTS TO SELL. 



183 



In the evening the Speaker came home afoot for exercise, 
and got the Genuine towed back behind a quartz wagGn. 
The next day I loaned the animal to the Clerk of the House 
to go down to the Dana silver mine, six miles, and he walked 

back for exercise, and 
got the horse towed. 
Everybody I loaned 
him to always walked 
back ; thev never could 
get enough exercise 
any other way. Still, 
I continued to loan 
him to anybody who 
was willing to borrow 
him, my idea being to 
get him crippled, and 
throw him on the bor- 
rower's hands, or killed, 
and make the borrower 
pay for him. But some- 
how nothing ever hap- 
pened to him. He took 
chances that no other 
horse ever took and 
survived, but he always came out safe. It was his daily 
habit to try experiments that had always before been con- 
sidered impossible, but he always got through. Sometimes 
he miscalculated a little, and did not get his rider through in- 
tact, but lie always got through himself. Of course I had 
tried to sell him ; but that was a stretch of simplicity which 
met with little sympathy. The auctioneer stormed up and 
dowu the streets on him for four days, dispersing the populace, 
interrupting business, and destroying children, and never got a 
bid — at least never any but the eighteen-dollar one he hired 
a notoriously substanceless bummer to make. The people 
only smiled pleasantly, and restrained their desire to buy, if 
they had any. Then the auctioneer brought in his bill, and 1 




WANTED EXERCISE. 



1S4 THE ANIMAL DISPOSED OF. 

withdrew the horse from the market. We tried to trade him 
off at private vendue next, offering him at a sacrifice for 
second-hand tombstones, old iron, temperance tracts — any 
kind of property. But holders were stiff', and we retired from 
the market again. I never tried to ride the horse any more. 
Walking was good enough exercise for a man like me, that 
had nothing the matter with him except ruptures, internal in- 
juries, and such things. Finally I tried to give him away. 
But it was a failure. Parties said earthquakes were handy 
enough on the Pacific coast — they did not wish to own one. 
As a last resort I offered him to the Governor for the use of 
the "Brigade." His face lit up eagerly at first, but toned 
down again, and he said the thing would be too palpable. 

Just then the livery stable man brought in his bill for six 
weeks' keeping — stall-room for the horse, fifteen dollars ; hay 
for the horse, two hundred and fifty ! The Genuine Mexican 
Plug had eaten a ton of the article, and the man said he would 
have eaten a hundred if he had let him. 

I will remark here, in all seriousness, that the regular price 
of hay during that year and a part of the next was really two 
hundred and fifty dollars a ton. During a part of the previous 
year it had sold at five hundred a ton, in gold, and during the 
winter before that there was such scarcity of the article that 
in several instances small quantities had brought eight hundred 
dollars a ton in coin! The consequence might be guessed 
without my telling it : peopled turned their stock loose to 
starve, and before the spring arrived Carson and Eagle valleys 
were almost literally carpeted with their carcases ! Any old 
settler there will verify these statements. 

I managed to pay the livery bill, and that same day I gave 
the Genuine Mexican Plug to a passing Arkansas emigrant 
whom fortune delivered into my hand. If this ever meets his 
eye, he will doubtless remember the donation. 

Now whoever has had the luck to ride a real Mexican plug 
will recognize the animal depicted in this chapter, and hardly 
consider him exaggerated — but the uninitiated will feel justi- 
fied in regarding his portrait as a fancy sketch, perhaps. 



CHAPTEK XXV. 

ORIGINALLY, Nevada was a part of Utah and was 
called Carson county ; and a pretty large county it was, 
too. Certain of its valleys produced no end of hay, and this 
attracted small colonies of Mormon stock-raisers and farmers 
to them. A few orthodox Americans straggled in from Cali- 
fornia, but no love was lost between the two classes of colo- 
nists. There was little or no friendly intercourse ; each party 
staid to itself. The Mormons were largely in the majority, 
and had the additional advantage of being peculiarly under 
the protection of the Mormon government of the Territory. 
Therefore they could afford to be distant, and even peremptory 
toward their neighbors. One of the traditions of Carson 
Valley illustrates the condition of things that prevailed at the 
time I speak of. The hired girl of one of the American 
families was Irish, and a Catholic; yet it was noted with sur- 
prise that she was the only person outside of the Mormon ring 
who could get favors from the Mormons. She asked kind- 
nesses of them often, and always got them. It was a mystery 
to everybody. But one day as she was passing out at the 
door, a large bowie knife dropped from under her apron, and 
when her mistress asked for an explanation she observed that 
she was going out to " borry a wash-tub from the Mormons ! " 
In 1858 silver lodes were discovered in " Carson County," 
and then the aspect of things changed. Californians began to 
flock in, and the American element was soon in the majority. 



1S6 



EMIGRANT 



OFFICIALS APPOINTED. 



Allegiance to Briffham Young and Utah was renounced, scttd 
a temporary territorial government for "Washoe" was insti- 
tuted by the citizens. Governor Hoop was the first and only 
chief magistrate of it. In due course of time Congress passed 
a bill to organize " Nevada Territory," and President Lincoln 
sent out Governor JSTye to supplant Koop. 

At this time the population of the Territory was about 
twelve or fifteen thousand, and rapidly increasing. Silver 

mines were 
being vigor- 
ously devel- 
oped and 
silver mills 
erected. 
Business of 
all kinds was 
active and 
prosperous 
and growing 
more so day 
by day. 

The peo- 
ple were glad 
to have a le- 
gitimately 
constituted 
government, 
but did not 
particularly 
enjoy having 
stran ger s 
from distant 
States put in 

BORROWING MADE EAST. r 

authority 
over them — a seutiment that was natural enough. They thought 
the officials should have been chosen from among themselves 
•—from among prominent citizens who had earned a right to 




FUNNY STRUGGLES FOR EXISTENCE. 187 

such promotion, and who would be in sympathy with the 
populace and likewise thoroughly acquainted with the needs 
of the Territory. They were right in viewing the matter 
thus, without doubt. The new officers were " emigrants," 
and that was no title to anybody's affection or admiration 
either. 

The new government was received with considerable cool- 
ness. It was not only a foreign intruder, but a poor one. It 
was not even worth plucking — except by the smallest of small 
fry office-seekers and such. Everybody knew that Congress 
had appropriated only twenty thousand dollars a year in green- 
backs for its support — about money enough to run a quartz 
mill a month. And everybody knew, also, that the first year's 
money was still in Washington, and that the getting hold of 
it would be a tedious and difficult process. Carson City was 
too wary and too wise to open up a credit account with the 
imported bantling with anything like indecent haste. 

There is something solemnly funny a iout the struggles of 
a new-born Territorial government to get a start in this world. 
Ours had a trying time of it. The Organic Act and the 
" instructions " from the State Department commanded that a 
legislature should be elected at such-and-such a time, and its 
sittings inaugurated at such-and-such a date. It was easy to 
get legislators, even at three dollars a day, although board was 
four dollars and fifty cents, for distinction has its charm in 
Nevada as well as elsewhere, and there were plenty of patriotic 
souls out of employment ; but to get a legislative hall for them 
to meet in was another matter altogether. Carson blandly 
declined to give a room rent-free, or let one to the government 
on credit. 

But when Curry heard of the difficulty, he came forward, 
solitary and alone, and shouldered the Ship of State over the 
bar and got her afloat again. I refer to " Curry — Old Curry 
— Old Abe Curry." But for him the legislature would have 
been obliged to sit in the desert. He offered his large stone 
building just outside the capital limits, rent-free, and it was 
gladly accepted. Then he built a horse-railroad from town 



1SS 



OLD ABE CURRY" BACKS THE GOVERNMENT. 



to the capitol, and carried the legislators gratis.' He also 
furnished pine benches and chairs for the legislature, and 




FREE RIDES. 



covered the floors with clean saw-dust by way of carpet and 
spittoon combined. But for Curry the government would 
have died in its tender infancy. A canvas partition to sepa- 
rate the Senate from the House of Representatives was put 
up by the Secretary, at a cost of three dollars and forty cents, 
but the United States declined to pay for it. Upon being re- 
minded that the " instructions " permitted the payment of a 
liberal rent for a legislative hall, and that that money was saved 
to the country by Mr. Curry's generosity, the United States 
said that did not alter the matter, and the three dollars and 
forty cents would be subtracted from the Secretary's eighteen 
hundred dollar salary — and it was ! 

The matter of printing was from the beginning an inter- 
esting feature of the new government's difficulties. The 
Secretary was sworn to obey his volume of written " instruc- 
tions," and these commanded him to do two certain things 
without fail, viz. : 

1. Get the House and Senate journals printed ; and, 

2. For this work, pay one dollar and fifty cents per 
" thousand " for composition, and one dollar and fifty cents 
per " token " for press-work, in greenbacks. 

It was easy to swear to do these two things, but it was en- 
tirely impossible to do more than one of them. When green- 
backs had gone down to forty cents on the dollar, the prices 
regularly charged everybody by printing establishments were 
one dollar and fifty cents per " thousand " and one dollar and 



ECONOMY NOT APPRECIATED. 189 

fifty cents per " token," in gold. The " instructions " com- 
manded that the Secretary regard a paper dollar issued by the 
government as equal to any other dollar issued by the gov- 
ernment. Hence the printing of the journals was dis- 
continued. Then the United States sternly rebuked the 
Secretary for disregarding the "instructions," and warned him 
to correct his ways. Wherefore he got some printing done, 
forwarded the bill to Washington with full exhibits of the 
high prices of things in the Territory, and called attention to 
a printed market report wherein it would be observed that 
even hay was two hundred and fifty dollars a ton. The 
United States responded by subtracting the printing-bill from 
the Secretary's suffering salary — and moreover remarked with 
dense gravity that he would find nothing in his " instructions ' ! 
requiring him to purchase hay ! 

Nothing in this world is palled in such impenetrabk 
obscurity as a U. S. Treasury Comptroller's understanding, 
The very fires of the hereafter could get up nothing more 
than a fitful glimmer in it. In the days I speak of he never 
could be made to comprehend why it was that twenty 
thousand dollars would not go as far in Nevada, where all 
commodities ranged at an enormous figure, as it would in the 
other Territories, where exceeding cheapness was the rule, 
He was an officer who looked out for the little expenses all 
the time. The Secretary of the Territory kept his office in 
his bedroom, as I before remarked; and he charged the 
United States no rent, although his " instructions " provided 
for that item and he could have justly taken advantage of it 
(a thing which I would have done with more than lightning 
promptness if I had been Secretary myself). But the United 
States never applauded this devotion. Indeed, I think my 
country was ashamed to have so improvident a person in its 
employ. 

Those "instructions" (we used to read a chapter from 
them every morning, as intellectual gymnastics, and a couple 
of chapters in Sunday school every Sabbath, for they treated 
of all subjects under the sun and had much valuable religious 



190 THE SECRETARY'S SALARY SUFFERS. 

matter in them along with the other statistics) those " instruc- 
tions" commanded that pen-knives, envelopes, pens and 
writing-paper be furnished the members of the legislature. 
So the Secretary made the purchase and the distribution. 
The knives cost three dollars apiece. There was one too 
many, and the Secretary gave it to the Clerk of the House of 
Eepresentatives. The United States said the Clerk of the 
House was not a "member" of the legislature, and took that 
three dollars out of the Secretary's salary, as usual. 

White men charged three or four dollars a "load" for 
sawing up stove-wood. The Secretary was sagacious enough 
to know that the United States would never pay any such 
price as that ; so he got an Indian to saw up a load of office 
wood at one dollar and a half. He made out the usual 
voucher, but signed no name to it — simply appended a note 
explaining that an Indian had done the work, and had done 
it in a very capable and satisfactory way, but could not sign 
the voucher owing to lack of ability in the necessary direc- 
tion. The Secretary had to pay that dollar and a half. He 
thought the United States would admire both his economy and 
his honesty in getting the work done at half price and not 
putting a pretended Indian's signature to the voucher, but the 
United States did not see it in that light. The United States 
was too much accustomed to employing dollar-and-a-half 





SATISFACTORY VOUCHER. 

thieves in all manner of official capacities to regard his expla- 
nation of the voucher as having any foundation in fact. 

But the next time the Indian sawed wood for us I taught 
him to make a cross at the bottom of the voucher — it looked 



A COLLECTION OF SOVEREIGNS 



191 



like a cross that had been drunk a year — and then I " wit- 
nessed " it and it went through all right. The United States 
never said a word. I was sorry I had not made the voucher 
for a thousand loads of wood instead of one. The govern- 




NEEDS PRAYING FOR. 



roent of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles 
artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a 
very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public 
service a year or two. 

That was a fine collection of sovereigns, that first Nevada 
legislature. They levied taxes to the amount of thirty or 
forty thousand dollars and ordered expenditures to the extent 



192 



ROADS TO FORTUNE — WELL TOLLED. 



of about a million. Yet they had their little periodical explo- 
sions of economy like all other bodies of the kind. A mem- 
ber proposed to save three dollars a day to the nation by 
dispensing with the Chaplain. And yet that short-sighted 
man needed the Chaplain more than any other member, per- 
haps, for he generally sat with his feet on his desk, eating 
raw turnips, during the morning prayer. 

The legislature sat sixty days, and passed private toll- 
road franchises all the time. When they adjourned it was 
estimated that every citizen owned about three franchises, 
and it was believed that unless Congress gave the Territory 
another degree of longitude there would not be room enough 
to accommodate the toll-roads. The ends of them were 
hanging over the boundary line everywhere like a fringe. 




MAP OF TOLL-ROADS. 



The fact is, the freighting business had grown to such im* 
portant proportions that there was nearly as much excitement 
over suddenly acquired toll-road fortunes as over the wonder, 
ful silver mines. 



OHAPTEE XXVI. 

BY and by I was smitten with the silver fever. " Prospect- 
ing parties " were leaving for the mountains every day, 
and discovering and taking possession of rich silver-bearing 
lodes and ledges of quartz. Plainly this was the road to for- 
tune. The great " Gould and Curry " mine was held at three 
or four hundred dollars a foot when we arrived ; but in two 
months it had sprung up to eight hundred. The "Ophir" 
had been worth only a mere trifle, a year gone by, and now it 
Wets selling at nearly four thousand dollars a foot ! Not a 
mine could be named that had not experienced an astonishing 
advance in value within a short time. Everybody was talking 
about these marvels. Go where you would, you heard nothing 
else, from morning till far into the night. Tom So-and-So had 
sold out of the "Amanda Smith" for $40,000— hadn't a cent 
when he "took up" the ledge six months ago. John Jones 
had sold half his interest in the " Bald Eagle and Mary Ann " 
for $65,000, gold coin, and gone to the States for his family. 
The widow Brewster had " struck it rich " in the " Golden 
Fleece" and sold ten feet for $18,000 — hadn't money enough 
to buy a crape bonnet when Sing-Sing Tommy killed her 
husband at Baldy Johnson's wake last spring. The " Last 
Chance" had found a "clay casing" and knew they were 
" right on the ledge " — consequence, " feet" that went begging 
yesterday were worth a brick house apiece to-day, and seedy 
owners who could not get trusted for a drink at any bar in the 
country yesterday were roaring drunk on champagne to-day 
13+ 



194 



HO! FOR HUMBOLDT. 



and had hosts of warm personal friends in a town where they 
had forgotten how to doav or shake hands from long-continued 
want of practice. Johnny Morgan, a common loafer, had gone 
to sleep in the gutter and waked up worth a hundred thousand 
dollars, in consequence of the decision in the " Lady Franklin 
and Rough and Ready " lawsuit. And so on — day in and day 

out the talk 
pelted our 
ears and the 
excitement 
waxed hot- 
ter and hot- 
ter around 
us. 

I would 
have been 
more or less 
than human 
if I had not 
gone mad 
like the rest. 
Cart-loads of 
solid silver 
bricks, as 

large as pigs of lead, were arriving from the mills every day, 
and such sights as that gave substance to the wild talk about 
me. I succumbed and grew as frenzied as the craziest. 

Every few days news would come of the discovery of a 
bran-new mining region ; immediately the papers would teem 
with accounts of its richness, and away the surplus population 
would scamper to take possession. By the time I was fairly 
inoculated with the disease, " Esmeralda " had just had a run 
and "Humboldt" was beginning to shriek for attention. 
" Humboldt ! Humboldt ! " was the new cry, and straightway 
Humboldt, the newest of the new, the richest of the rich, the 
most marvellous of the marvellous discoveries in silver-land, 
was occupying two columns of the public prints to "Esme- 




UNLOADIXG SILVER BRICKS. 



WHAT MADE ME CRAZY. 195 



ralda's" one. I was just on the point of starting to Esmeralda, 
but turned with the tide and got ready for Humboldt. That 
the reader may see what moved me, and what would as surely 
have moved him had he been there, I insert here one of the 
newspaper letters of the day. It and several other letters 
from the same calm hand were the main means of converting 
me. I shall not garble the extract, but put it in just as it ap- 
peared in the Daily Territorial Enterprise : 

But what about ourcnines ? I shall be candid with you. I shall express 
an honest opinion, based upon a thorough examination. Humboldt county 
is the richest mineral region upon God's footstool. Each mountain range is 
gorged with the precious ores. Humboldt is the true Golconda. 

The other day an assay of mere croppings yielded exceeding four 
thousand dollars to the ton. A week or two ago an assay of just such sur- 
face developments made returns of seven tJwusand dollars to the ton. Our 
mountains are full of rambling prospectors. Each day and almost every 
hour reveals new and more startling evidences of the profuse and intensified 
wealth of our favored county. The metal is not silver alone. There are 
distinct ledges of auriferous ore. A late discovery plainly evinces cinnabar. 
The coarser metals are in gross abundance. Lately evidences of bituminous 
coal have been detected. My theory has ever been that coal is a ligneous for- 
mation. I told Col. Whitman, in times past, that the neighborhood of Dayton 
(Nevada) betrayed no present or previous manifestations of a ligneous foun- 
dation, and that hence I had no confidence in his lauded coal mines. I 
repeated the same doctrine to the exultant coal discoverers of Humboldt. I 
talked with my friend Captain Burch on the subject. My pyrhanism van- 
ished upon his statement that in the very region referred to he had seen 
petrified trees of the length of two hundred feet. Then is the fact estab- 
lished that huge forests once cast their grim shadows over this remote 
section. I am firm in the coal faith. Have no fears of the mineral resources 
of Humboldt county. They are immense — incalculable. 

Let me state one or two things which will help the reader 
to better comprehend certain items in the above. At this 
time, our near neighbor, Gold Hill, was the most successful 
silver mining locality in Nevada. It was from there that more 
than half the daily shipments of silver bricks came. " Very 
rich" (and scarce) Gold Hill ore yielded from $100 to $400 
to the ton ; but the usual yield was only $20 to $40 per ton — 
that is to say, each hundred pounds of ore yielded from one 
dollar to two dollars. But the reader will perceive by the 



196 



THE FINAL ARGUMENT 



above extract, that in Humboldt from one fourth to nearly- 
half the mass was silver! That is to say, every one hun- 
dred pounds 
of the ore had 
from tivo hun- 
dred dollars 
up to about 
three hundred 
and fifty in 
it. Some days 
later this same 
correspondent 
wrote : 

I have spoken 
of the vast and 
almost fabulous 

wealth of this region — it is incredible. 
The intestines of our mountains are 
gorged with precious ore to plethora. I 
have said that nature has so shaped our 
mountains as to furnish most excellent 
facilities for the working of our mines. 
I have also told you that the country 
about here is pregnant with the finest 
mill sites in the world. But what is the 
mining history of Humboldt ? The Sheba 
mine is in the hands of energetic San 
Francisco capitalists. It would seem that 
the ore is combined with metals that ren- 
der it difficult of reduction with our im- 
perfect mountain machinery. The proprietors have combined the capital 
and labor hinted at in my exordium. They are toiling and probing. Their 
tunnel has reached the length of one hundred feet. From primal assays 
alone, coupled with the development of the mine and public confidence m 
the continuance of effort, the stock had reared itself to eight hundred dollars 
market value. I do not know that one ton of the ore has been converted 
into current metal. I do know that there are many lodes in this section 
that surpass the Sheba in primal assay value. Listen a moment to the cal- 
culations of the Sheba operators. They purpose transporting the ore con- 
centrated to Europe. The conveyance from Star City (its locality) to Virginia 
City will cost seventy dollars per ton ; from Virginia to San Francisco, forty 
dollars per ton; from thence to Liverpool, its destination, ten dollars per ton. 
Their idea is that its conglomerate metals will reimburse them their cost of 




VIEW IN HUMBOLDT MOUNTAINS. 



DECIDED TO GO. 197 

original extraction, the price of transportation, and the expense of reduction, 
and that then a ton of the raw ore will net them twelve hundred dollars. 
The estimate may be extravagant. Cut it in twain, and the product is enor- 
mous, far transcending any previous developments of our racy Territory. 

A very common calculation is that many of our mines will yield five 
hundred dollars to the ton. Such fecundity throws the Gould & Curry, the 
Ophir and the Mexican, of your neighborhood, in the darkest shadow. I 
have given you the estimate of the value of a single developed mine. Its 
richness is indexed by its market valuation. The people of Humboldt 
county are feet crazy. As I write, our towns are near deserted. They look 
as languid as a consumptive girl. What has become of our sinewy and 
athletic fellow-citizens ? They are coursing through ravines and over 
mountain tops. Their tracks are visible in every direction. Occasionally a 
horseman will dash among us. His steed betrays hard usage. He alights 
before his adobe dwelling, hastily exchanges courtesies with his townsmen, 
lmrries to an assay office and from thence to the District Recorder's. In the 
morning, having renewed his provisional supplies, he is off again on his 
wild and unbeaten route. Why, the fellow numbers already his feet by the 
thousands. He is the horse-leech. He has the craving stomach of the 
shark or anaconda. He would conquer metallic worlds. 

This was enough. The instant we had finished reading 
the above article, four of us decided to go to Humboldt. We 
commenced getting ready at once. And we also commenced 
upbraiding ourselves for not deciding sooner — for we were in 
terror lest all the rich mines would be found and secured 
before we got there, and we might have to put up with ledges 
that would not yield more than two or three hundred dollars 
a ton, maybe. An hour before, I would have felt opulent if 
I had owned ten feet in a Gold Hill mine whose ore produced 
twenty-five dollars to the ton ; now I was already annoyed at 
the prospect of having to put up with mines the poorest of 
which would be a marvel in Gold Hill. 



CHAPTER XXTII. 

HTJKKY, was the word! We wasted no time. Our 
party consisted of four persons — a blacksmith sixty 
years of age, two young lawyers, and myself We bought a 
wagon and two miserable old horses. We put eighteen 
hundred pounds of provisions and mining tools in the wagon 
and drove out of Carson on a chilly December afternoon. 
The horses were so weak and old that we soon found that it 
would be better if one or two of us got out and walked. It 
was an improvement. Next, we found that it would be better 
if a third man got out. That was an improvement also. It 
was at this time that I volunteered to drive, although I had 
never driven a harnessed horse before and many a man in 
such a position would have ielt fairly excused from such a 
responsibility. But in a little while it was found that it 
would be a fine thing if the driver got out and walked also. 
It was at this time that I resigned the position of driver, and 
never resumed it again. Within the hour, we found that it 
would not only be better, but was absolutely necessary, that 
we four, taking turns, two at a time, should put our hands 
against the end of the wagon and push it through the sand, 
leaving the feeble horses little to do but keep out of the way 
and hold up the tongue. Perhaps it is well for one to know 
his fate at first, and get reconciled to it. We had learned 
ours in one afternoon. It was plain that we had to walk 
through the sand and shove that wagon and those horses two 
hundred miles. So we accepted the situation, and from that 
time forth we never rode. More than that, we stood regular 
and nearly constant watches pushing up behind. 



HOW WE CONVEYED OURSELVES AND TEAM. 199 

We made seven miles, and camped in the desert. Young 
Clagett (now member of Congress from Montana) unharnessed 
and fed and watered the horses ; Oliphant and I cut sage- 
brush, built the fire and brought water to cook with ; and old 
Mr. Ballou the blacksmith did the cooking. This division of 
labor, and this appointment, was adhered to throughout the 
journey. We had no tent, and so we slept under our blankets 
in the open plain. We were so tired that we slept soundly. 

We were fifteen days making the trip — two hundred 
miles ; thirteen, rather, for we lay by a couple of days, in one 




GOING TO HUMBOLDT. 



place, to let the horses rest. We could really have accom- 
plished the journey in ten days if we had towed the horses 
behind the wagon, but we did not think of that until it was 
too late, and so went on shoving the horses and the wagon too 
when we might have saved half the labor. Parties who met 
us, occasionally, advised us to put the horses in the wagon, 
but Mr. Ballou, through whose iron-clad earnestness no sar- 
casm could pierce, said that that would not do, because the 
provisions were exposed and would suffer, the horses being 
" bituminous from long deprivation." The reader will excuse 
me from translating. What Mr. Ballou customarily meant, 
when he used a long word, was a secret between himself and 
his Maker. He was one of the best and kindest hearted men 
that ever graced a humble sphere of life. He was gentleness 



200 MR. BALLOU COMPLAINS OF HIS BEDFELLOW. 

and simplicity itself — and unselfishness, too. Although he was 
more than twice as old as the eldest of us, he never gave him- 
self any airs, privileges, or exemptions on that account. He did 
a young man's share of the work ; and did his share of convers- 
ing and entertaining from the general stand-point of any age — 
not from the arrogant, overawing summit-height of sixty years. 
His one striking peculiarity was his Partingtonian fashion of 
loving and using big words for their own salces, and inde- 
pendent of any bearing they might have upon the thought he 
was purposing to convey. He always let his ponderous sylla- 
bles fall with an easy unconsciousness that left them wholly 
without offensiveness. In truth his air was so natural and so 
simple that one was always catching himself accepting his 
stately sentences as meaning something, when they really 
meant nothing in the world. If a word was long and grand 
and resonant, that was sufficient to win the old man's love, 
and he would drop that word into the most out-of-the-way 
place in a sentence or a subject, and be as pleased with it as 
if it were perfectly luminous with meaning. 

We four always spread our common stock of blankets 
together on the frozen ground, and slept side by side ; and 
finding that our foolish, long-legged hound pup had a deal of 
animal heat in him, Oliphant got to admitting him to the bed, 
between himself and Mr. Ballou, hugging the dog's warm 
back to his breast and finding great comfort in it. But in the 
night the pup would get stretchy and brace his feet against the 
old man's back and shove, grunting complacently the while ; 
and now and then, being warm and snug, grateful and happy, 
he would paw the old man's back simply in excess of comfort ; 
and at yet other times he would dream of the chase and in 
his sleep tug at the old man's back hair and bark in his 'ear. 
The old gentleman complained mildly about these familiarities, 
at last, and when he got through with his statement he said 
that such a dog as that was not a proper animal to admit to bed 
with tired men, because he was " so meretricious in his move- 
ments and so organic in his emotions." We turned the dog out. 

It was a hard, wearing, toilsome journey, but it had its 



PLEASURES OF CAMP LIFE. 201 

bright side ; for after each day was done and our wolfish 
hunger appeased with a hot supper of fried bacon, bread, mo- 




BALLOU S BEDFELLOW. 



lasses and black coffee, the pipe-smoking, song-singing and 
yarn-spinning around the evening camp-fire in the still soli^ 
tudes of the desert was a happy, care-free sort of recreation 
that seemed the very summit and culmination of earthly 
luxury. It is a kind of life that has a potent charm for all 
men, whether city or country-bred. We are descended from 
desert-lounging Arabs, and countless ages of growth toward 
perfect civilization have failed to root out of us the nomadic 
instinct. We all confess to a gratified thrill at the thought of 
" camping out." 

Once we made twenty-five miles in a day, and once we 
made forty miles (through the Great American Desert), and 
ten miles beyond — fifty in all — in twenty-three hours, without 
halting to eat, drink or rest. To stretch out and go to sleep, 
even on stony and frozen ground, after pushing a wagon and 
two horses fifty miles, is a delight so supreme that for the 
moment it almost seems cheap at the price. 

We camped two days in the neighborhood of the " Sink 
of the Humboldt." We tried to use the strong alkaline water 
of the Sink, but it would not answer. It was like drinking 
lye, and not weak lye, either. It left a taste in the mouth, 



202 



ALKALI WATER AS A BEVERAGE, 



bitter and every way execrable, and a burning in the stomach 
that was very uncomfortable. We put molasses in it, but that 
helped it very little ; we added a pickle, yet the alkali was the 
prominent taste, and so it was unfit for drinking. The coffee 




PLEASURES OF CAMPING OUT. 



we made of this water was 
the meanest compound man 
has yet invented. It was 
really viler to the taste than 
the unameli orated water it- 
self. Mr. Ballon, being the 
architect and builder of the 
beverage felt constrained to endorse and uphold it, and so 
drank half a cup, by little sips, making shift to praise it faintly 
the while, but finally threw out the remainder, and said frankly 
it was " too technical for him" 

But presently we found a spring of fresh water, conve- 
nient, and then, with nothing to mar our enjoyment, and no 
stragglers to interrupt it, we entered into our rest. 



CHAPTEE XXVIII. 

AFTEE leaving the Sink, we traveled along the Humboldt 
river a little way. People accustomed to the monster 
mile-wide Mississippi, grow accustomed to associating the 
term "river" with a high degree of watery grandeur. 
Consequently, such people feel rather disappointed when they 
stand on the shores of the Humboldt or the Carson and find 
that a "river" in Nevada is a sickly rivulet which is just 
the counterpart of the Erie csnal in all respects save that 
the canal is twice as long and four times as deep. One of 
the pleasant est and most invigorating exercises one can con- 
trive is to run and jump across the Humboldt river till he is 
overheated, and then drink it dry. 

On the fifteenth day we completed our march of two 
hundred miles and entered Unionville, Humboldt county, in 
the midst of a driving snow-storm. Unionville consisted 
of eleven cabins and a liberty-pole. Six of the cabins were 
strung along one side of a deep canyon, and the other five 
faced them. The rest of the landscape was made up of bleak 
mountain wails that rose so high into the sky from both 
sideti of the canyon that the village was left, as it were, far 
down in the bottom of a crevice. It was always daylight on 
the mountain tops a long time before the darkness lifted and 
revealed Unionville. 

We built a small, rude cabin in the side of the crevice and 
roofed it with canvas, leaving a corner open to serve as a 
ehimney, through winch the cattle used to tumble occasionally, 



204 A PRIVATE PROSPECTING TOUR. 

at night, and mash our furniture and interrupt our sleep. It 
was very cold weather and fuel was scarce. Indians brought 
brush and bushes several miles on their backs ; and when we 
could catch a laden Indian it was well — and when we could 
not (which was the rule, not the exception), we shivered and 
bore it. 

I confess, without shame, that Jl expected to find masses 
of silver lying all about the ground. I expected to see it 
glittering in the sun on the mountain summits. I said 
nothing about this, for some instinct told me that I 
might possibly have an exaggerated idea about it, and so 
if I betrayed my thought I might bring derision upon 
myself. Yet I was as perfectly satisfied in my own mind 
as I could be of anything, that I was going to gather up, in 
a day or two, or at furthest a week or two, silver enough 
to make me satisfactorily wealthy — and so my fancy was 
already busy with plans for spending this money. The first 
opportunity that offered, I sauntered carelessly away from the 
cabin, keeping an eye on the other boys, and stopping and 
contemplating the sky when they seemed to be observing me ; 
but as soon as the coast was manifestly clear, I fled away as 
guiltily as a thief might have done and never halted till I was 
far beyond sight and call. Then I began my search with 
a feverish excitement that was brimful of expectation — almost 
of certainty. I crawled about the ground, seizing and ex- 
amining bits of stone, blowing the dust from them or rubbing 
them on my clothes, and then peering at them with anxious 
hope. Presently I found a bright fragment and my heart 
bounded ! I hid behind a boulder and polished it and scruti- 
nized it with a nervous eagerness and a delight that was more 
pronounced than absolute certainty itself could have afforded. 
The more I examined the fragment the more I was convinced 
that I had found the door to fortune. I marked the spot and 
carried away my specimen. Up and down the rugged moun- 
tain side I searched, with always increasing interest and 
always augmenting gratitude that I had come to Humboldt 
and come in time. Of all the experiences of my life, this 



FINDING MY FIRST GOLD MINE. 



205 



secret search among the hidden treasures of silver-land waa 
the nearest to unmarred ecstasy. It was a delirious revel. 
By and by, in the bed of a shallow rivulet, I found a de- 
posit of shining 
yellow scales,and 
my breath almost 
forsook me! A 
gold mine, and 
in my simplicity 
I had been con- 
tent with vulgar 
silver ! I was so 
excited that I 
half believed my 
overwrought im- 
agination was de- 
ceiving me. Then 
a fear came upon 
me that people 
might be observ- 
ing me and would 
guess my secret. 

Moved by this thought, I made a circuit of the place, and 
ascended a knoll to reconnoiter. Solitude. No creature was 
near. Then I returned to my mine, fortifying myself against 
possible disappointment, but my fears were groundless — the 
shining scales were still there. I set about scooping them out, 
and for an hour I toiled down the windings of the stream 
and robbed its bed. But at last the descending sun warned 
me to give up the quest, and I turned homeward laden with 
wealth. As I walked along I could not help smiling at the 
thought of my being so excited over my fragment of silver 
when a nobler metal was almost under my nose. In this little 
time the former had so fallen in my estimation that once or 
twice I was on the point of throwing it away. 

The boys were as hungry as usual, but I could eat nothing. 
Neither could I talk. I was full of dreams and far away. 




THE SECRET SEAiiCH. 



20G FILTERING THE NEWS TO MY COMPANIONS. 

Their conversation interrupted the flow of my fancy some- 
what, and annoyed me a little, too. I despised the sordid and 
commonplace things they talked about. But as they proceeded, 
it began to amuse me. It grew to be rare fun to hear them 
planning their poor little economies and sighing over possible 
privations and distresses when a gold mine, all our own, lay; 
within sight of the cabin and I could point it out at any 
moment. Smothered hilarity began to oppress me, presently. 
It was hard to resist the impulse to burst out with exultation 
and reveal everything; but I did resist. I said within myself 
that I would filter the great news through my lips calmly and 
be serene as a summer morning while I watched its effect in 
their faces. I said : 

" Where have you all been ? " 

"Prospecting." 

"What did you find?" 

" Nothing." 

"Nothing? What do you think of the country?" 

"Can't tell, yet," said Mr: Ballou, who was an old gold 
miner, and had likewise had considerable experience among 
the silver mines. 

" Well, haven't you formed any sort of opinion ? " 

" Yes, a sort of a one. It's fair enough here, may be, but 
overrated. Seven thousand dollar ledges are scarce, though. 
That Sheba may be rich enough, but we don't own it ; and 
besides, the rock is so full of base metals that all the science 
in the world can't work it. We'll not starve, here, but we'll 
not get rich, I'm afraid." 

" So you think the prospect is pretty poor ? " 

" No name for it ! " 

" Well, we'd better go back, hadn't we ? " 

" Oh, not yet — of course not. We'll try it a riffle, first." 

" Suppose, now — this is merely a supposition, you know — 
suppose you could find a ledge that would yield, say, a 
hundred and fifty dollars a ton — would that satisfy you ? " 

" Try us once ! " from the whole party. 

" Or suppose — merely a supposition, of course — suppose 



BALLOU BECOMES EXCITED. 



207 



you were to find a ledge that would yield two thousand 
dollars a ton — would that satisfy you ? " 

"Here — what do you mean? What are you coming at? 
Is there some mystery behind all this ? " 

"Never mind. I am not saying anything. You know 
perfectly well there are no rich mines here — of course you do. 
Because you have been around and examined for yourselves. 
Anybody would know that, that had been around, But 
just for the sake of argument, suppose — in a kind of general 
way — suppose some person were to tell you that two-thousand- 
dollar ledges were simply contemptible — contemptible, under- 
stand — and that right yonder in sight of this very cabin there 
were piles of pure gold and pure silver — oceans of it — enough 
to make you all rich in twenty-four hours ! Come ! " 




CAST TOUR EYE ON THAT ! " 



" I should say he was as crazy as a loon ! " said old Ballou, 
'but wild with excitement, nevertheless. 

" Gentlemen," said I, " I don't say anything — / haven't 



20S PRICKING THE BUBBLE. 

been around, you know, and of course don't know anything — 
but all I ask of you is to cast your eye on that, for instance, 
and tell me what you think of it ! " and I tossed my treasure 
before them. 

There was an eager scramble for it, and a closing of heads 
together over it under the candle-light. Then old Ballou 
said : 

" Think of it ? I think it is nothing but a lot of granite 
rubbish and nasty glittering mica that isn't worth ten cents 
an acre ! " 

So vanished my dream. So melted my wealth away. So 
toppled my airy castle to the earth and left me stricken and 
forlorn. 

Moralizing, I observed, then, that " all that glitters is not 
gold." 

Mr. Ballou said I could go further than that, and lay it 
up among my treasures of knowledge, that nothing that glit- 
ters is gold. So I learned then, once for all, that gold in its 
native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and that only low- 
born metals excite the admiration of the. ignorant with an 
ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I 
still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of 
mica. Commonplace human nature cannot rise above that. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

TRUE knowledge of the nature of silver mining came fast 
enough. We went out " prospecting " with Mr. Ballou. 
We climbed the mountain sides, and clambered among sage- 
brush, rocks and snow till we were ready to drop with exhaus- 
tion, but found no silver — nor jet any gold. Day after day we 
did this. Now and then we came upon holes burrowed a few 
feet into the declivities and apparently abandoned ; and now 
and then we found one or two listless men still burrowing. 
But there was no appearance of silver. These holes were the 
beginnings of tunnels, and the purpose was to drive them hun- 
dreds of feet into the mountain, and some day tap the hidden 
ledge where the silver was. Some day ! It seemed far enough 
away, and very hopeless and dreary. Day after day we toiled, 
and climbed and searched, and we younger partners grew 
sicker and still sicker of the promiseless toil. At last we 
halted under a beetling rampart of rock which projected from 
the earth high upon the mountain. Mr. Ballou broke off some 
fragments with a hammer, and examined them long and atten- 
tively with a small eye-glass ; threw them away and broke off 
more; said this rock was quartz, and quartz was the sort of 
rock that contained silver. Contained it ! I had thought 
that at least it would be caked on the outside of it like a kind 
of veneering. He still broke off pieces and critically examined 
them, now and then wetting the piece with his tongue and 
applying the glass. At last he exclaimed : 



210 



MR. BALLOU'S DISCOVERY. 



"We've got it!" 

We were full of anxiety in a moment. The rock was 
clean and white, where it was broken, and across it ran a 
ragged thread of blue. He said that that little thread had 

silver in it,mixed 
with base metals, 
such as lead and 
antimony, and 
other rubbish, 
and that there 
was a speck or 
two of gold visi- 
ble. After a 
great deal of ef- 
fort we managed 
to discern some 
little fine yellow 
specks, and 
judged that a 
couple of tons 
of them massed 
together might 
make a gold 
dollar, possibly. 
We were not ju- 
bilant, but Mr. 
Ballou saia there 
were worse ledg- 
es in the world 
than that. He saved what he called the " richest " piece of 
the rock, in order to determine its value by the process called 
the "fire-assay." Then we named the mine "Monarch of 
the Mountains" (modesty of nomenclature is not a prominent 
feature in the mines), and Mr. Ballou wrote out and stuck up 
the following "notice," preserving a copy to be entered upon 
the books in the mining recorder's office in the town. 




WE YE GOT IT 



A SILVER MINE AT LAST. 211 

" NOTICE." 
•* We the undersigned claim three claims, of three hundred feet each 
[and one for discovery), on this silver-bearing quartz lead or lode, extending 
north and south from this notice, with all its dips, spurs, and angles, varia- 
tions and sinuosities, together with fifty feet of ground on either side for 
working the same." 

We put our names to it and tried to feel that our fortunes were 
made. But when we talked the matter all over with Mr. Ballou, 
we felt depressed and dubious. He said that this surface quartz 
was not all there was of our mine ; but that the wall or ledge of 
rock called the " Monarch of the Mountains," extended down 
hundreds and hundreds of feet into the earth — he illustrated by 
saying it was like a curb-stone, and maintained a nearly uniform 
thickness — say twenty feet — away down into the bowels of the 
earth, and was perfectly distinct from the casing rock on each 
side of it ; and that it kept to itself, and maintained its distinct- 
ive character always, no matter how deep it extended into the 
earth or how far it stretched itself through and across the hills 
and valleys. He said it might be a mile deep and ten miles long, 
for all we knew ; and that wherever we bored into it above 
ground or below, we would find gold and silver in it, but no 
gold or silver in the meaner rock it was cased between. And 
he said that down in the great depths of the ledge was its rich- 
ness, and the deeper it went the richer it grew. Therefore, 
instead of working here on the surface, we must either bore 
down into the rock with a shaft till we came to where it was 
rich — say a hundred feet or so — or else we must go down into 
the valley and bore a long tunnel into the mountain side and 
tap the ledge far under the earth. To do either was plainly 
the labor of months ; for we could blast and bore only a few 
feet a day — some five or six. But this was not all. He said 
that after we got the ore out it must be hauled in wagons to a 
distant silver-mill, ground up, and the silver extracted by a 
tedious and costly process. Our fortune seemed a century 
away ! 

But we went to work. "We decided to sink a shaft. So, 
for a week we climbed the mountain, laden with picks, drills, 



212 



ON THE ROAD TO FORTUNE 



gads, crowbars, shovels, cans of blasting powder and coils of 
fuse and strove with might and main. At first the rock was 
broken and loose and we dug it up with picks and threw it out 
with shovels, and the hole progressed very well. But the rock 
became more compact, presently, and gads and crowbars came 
into play. But shortly nothing could make an impression but 
blasting powder. That was the weariest work ! One of us 
held the iron drill in its place and another would strike with 
an eight-pound sledge — it was like driving nails on a large 
scale. In the course of an hour or two the drill would reach 




INCIPIENT MILLIONAIRES. 



a depth of two or three feet, making a hole a couple oi 
inches in diameter. We would put in a charge of powder, in- 






WE FIND IT HARD TO TRAVEL. 213 

sert half a yard of fuse, pour in sand and gravel and ram it 
down, then light the fuse and run. "When the explosion came 
and the rocks and smoke shot into the air, we would go back 
and find about a bushel of that hard, rebellious quartz jolted 
out. Nothing more. One week of this satisfied me. I re- 
signed. Clagget and Oliphant followed. Our shaft was only 
twelve feet deep. We decided that a tunnel was the thing 
we wanted. 

So we went down the mountain side and worked a week ; 
at the end of which time we had blasted a tunnel about deep 
enough to hide a hogshead in, and judged that about nine 
hundred feet more of it would reach the ledge. I resigned 
again, and the other boys only held out one day longer. We 
decided that a tunnel was not what we wanted. We wanted 
a ledge that was already " developed." There were none in 
the camp. 

We dropped the " Monarch " for the time being. 

Meantime the camp was filling up with people, and there 
was a constantly growing excitement about our Humboldt 
mines. We fell victims to the epidemic and strained every 
nerve to acquire more " feet." We prospected and took up 
new claims, put " notices " on them and gave them grandiloquent 
names. We traded some of our "feet" for "feet" in other 
people's claims. In a little while we owned largely in the 
" Gray Eagle," the "Columbiana," the "Branch Mint," the 
" Maria Jane," the " Universe," the " Koot-Hog-or-Die," the 
" Samson and Delilah," the " Treasure Trove," the " Golconda " 
the " Sultana," the " Boomerang," the " Great Kepublic," the 
" Grand Mogul," and fifty other " mines " that had never been 
molested by a shovel or scratched with a pick. We had not less 
than thirty thousand " feet " apiece in the " richest mines on 
earth" as the frenzied cant phrased it — and were in debt to 
the butcher. We were stark mad with excitement — drunk 
with happiness — smothered under mountains of prospective 
wealth — arrogantly compassionate toward the plodding millions 
who knew not our marvellous canyon — but our credit was not 
good at the grocer's. 



2U 



POCKETS FULL OF ROCKS. 



It was the strangest phase of life one can imagine. It was 
a beggars' revel. There was nothing doing in the district — 
no mining — no milling — no productive effort — no income — 
and not enough money in the entire camp to buy a corner 
lot in an eastern village, hardly ; and yet a stranger would 
have supposed he was walking among bloated millionaires. 
Prospecting parties swarmed out of town with the first flush 
of dawn, and swarmed in again at nightfall laden with spoil — 
rocks. Nothing but rocks. Every man's pockets were full of 
them ; the floor of his cabin was littered with them ; they 
were disposed in labeled rows on his shelves. 







CHAPTER XXX. 

I MET men at every turn who owned from one thousand to 
thirty thousand "feet" in undeveloped silver mines, 
every single foot of which they believed would shortly be 
worth from fifty to a thousand dollars — and as often as any 
ether way they were men who had not twenty-five dollars in 
the world. Every man you met had his new mine to boast 
of, and his " specimens" ready ; and if the opportunity offered, 
he would infallibly back you into a corner and offer as a favor 
to you, not to him, to part with just a few feet in the " Golden 
Age," or the " Sarah Jane," or some other unknown stack of 
croppings, for money enough to get a " square meal " with, as 
the phrase went. And you were never to reveal that he had 
made you the offer at such a ruinous price, for it was only out 
of friendship for you that he was willing to make the sacrifice. 
Then he would fish a piece of rock out of his pocket, and 
after looking mysteriously around as if he feared he might be 
waylaid and robbed if caught with such wealth in his posses- 
sion, he would dab the rock against his tongue, clap an eye* 
glass to it, and exclaim : 

"Look at that! Right there in that red dirt! See it? 
See the specks of gold ? And the streak of silver? That's 
from the ' Uncle Abe.' There's a hundred thousand tons like 
that in sight ! Right in sight, mind you ! And when we get 
down on it and the ledge comes in solid, it will be the richest 
thing in the world ! Look at the assay ! I don't want you to 
believe me — look at the assay ! " 



216 



HOW "FEET 



WERE SOLD, 



Then he would get out a greasy sheet of paper which 
showed that the portion of rock assayed had given evidence 
of containing silver and gold in the proportion of so many 

hundreds or 
thousands of dol- 
lars to the ton. 
I little knew, 
then, that the 
custom was to 
hunt out the 
richest piece of 
rock and get it 
assayed! Yery 
often, that piece, 
the size of a fil- 
bert, was the only 
fragment in a ton 
that had a particle 
of metal in it — 
and yet the assay 
made it pretend 
to represent the 
average value of 
the ton of rub- 
bish it came from ! 
On such a system of assaying as that, the Humboldt 
world had gone crazy. On the authority of such assays its 
newspaper correspondents were frothing about rock worth 
four and seven thousand dollars a ton ! 

And does the reader remember, a few pages back, the cal- 
culations, of a quoted correspondent, whereby the ore is to be 
mined and shipped all the way to England, the metals ex- 
tracted, and the gold and silver contents received back by the 
miners as clear profit, the copper, antimony and other things 
in the ore being sufficient to pay all the expenses incurred ? 
Everybody's head was full of such "calculations" as those — 
such raving insanity, rather. Few people took work into their 




DO YOU SEE IT 



A PILGRIMAGE TO ESMERALDA. 217 

calculations — or outlay of money either; except the work 
and expenditures of other people. 

We never touched our tunnel or our shaft again. "Why ? 
Because we judged that we had learned the real secret of 
success in silver mining — which was, not to mine the silver 
ourselves by the sweat of our brows and the labor of our hands, 
but to sell the ledges to the dull slaves of toil and let them do 
the mining ! 

Before leaving Carson, the Secretary and I had purchased 
"feet" from various Esmeralda stragglers. "We had expected 
immediate returns of bullion, "but were only afflicted with 
regular and constant "assessments" instead — demands for 
money wherewith to develop the said mines. These assess- 
ments had grown so oppressive that it seemed necessary to 
look into the matter personally. Therefore I projected a pil- 
grimage to Carson and thence to Esmeralda. I bought a 
horse and started, in company with Mr. Ballou and a gentle- 
man named Ollendorff, a Prussian — not the party who has 
inflicted so much suffering on the world with his wretched 
foreign grammars, with their interminable repetitions of ques- 
tions which never have occurred and are never likely to occur 
in any conversation among human beings. We rode through 
a snow-storm for two or three days, and arrived at " Honey 
Lake Smith's," a sort of isolated inn on the Carson river. It 
was a two-story log house situated on a small knoll in the 
midst of the vast basin or desert through which the sickly 
Carson winds its melancholy way. Close to the house were 
the Overland stage stables, built of sun-dried bricks. There 
was not another building within several leagues of the place. 
Towards sunset about twenty hay- wagons arri s^ed and camped 
around the house and all the teamsters came in to supper — a 
very, very rough set. There were one or two Overland stage 
drivers there, also, and half a dozen vagabonds and stragglers ; 
consequently the house was well crowded. 

We walked out, after supper, and visited a small Indian 
camp in the vicinity. The Indians were in a great hurry 
about something, and were packing up and getting away as 



21S 



AN INDIAN PROPHESY. 




fast as they could. In their broken English they said, " By'm- 
by, heap water ! " and by the help of signs made us under- 
stand that in their opinion a flood was coming. The weather 
was perfectly clear, and this was not the rainy season. There 
was about a foot of water in the insignificant river — or maybe 
two feet ; the stream was not wider than a back alley in a 

village, and its 
banks were 
scarcely higher 
than a man's 
head. So, where 
was the flood 
to come from? 
We canvassed 
the subject a- 
while and then 
concluded it 

FAREWELL SWEET RIVER. WRS * "*** ™ d 

that the Indians 
had some better reason for leaving in a hurry than fears of a 
flood in such an exceedingly dry time. 

At seven in the evening we went to bed in the second 
story — with our clothes on, as usual, and all three in the same 
bed, for every available space on the floors, chairs, etc., was in 
request, and even then there was barely room for the housing 
of the inn's guests. An hour later we were awakened by a 
great turmoil, and springing out of bed we picked our way 
nimbly among the ranks of snoring teamsters on the floor and 
got to the front windows of the long room. A glance revealed 
a strange spectacle, under the moonlight. The crooked Carson 
was full to the brim, and its waters were raging and foaming 
in the wildest way — sweeping around the sharp bends at a 
furious speed, and bearing on their surface a chaos of logs, 
brush and all sorts of rubbish. A depression, where its bed 
had once been, in other times, was already filling, and in 
one or two places the water was beginning to wash over the 
main bank. Men were flying hither and thither, bringing 



UNEXPECTED RISE OF WATER 



219 



cattle and wagons close up to the house, for the spot of high 
ground on which it stood extended only some thirty feet in 
front and about a hundred in the rear. Close to the old river 
bed just spoken of, stood a little log stable, and in this our 




horses were lodged. 
While we looked, the 
waters increased so .fast 
in this place that in a 
few minutes a torrent 
was roaring by the little 
stable and its margin 
encroaching steadily on 
the logs. We suddenly 
realized that this flood 
was not a mere holiday spectacle, but meant damage — and not 
only to the small log stable but to the Overland buildings 
close to the main river, for the waves had now come ashore 
and were creeping about the foundations and invading the 



THE RESCUE. 



220 OUR QUARTERS AFTER THE FLOOD. 

great hay-corral adjoining. We ran down and joined the 
crowd of excited men and frightened animals. "We waded 
knee-deep into the log stable, unfastened the horses and 
waded out almost waist-dee]), so fast the waters increased. 
Then the crowd rushed in a body to the hay-corral and began 
to tumble down the huge stacks of baled hay and roll the 
bales up on the high ground by the house. Meantime it was 
discovered that Owens, an overland driver, was missing, and a 
man ran to the large stable, and wading in, boot-top deep, 
discovered him asleep in his bed, awoke him, and waded out 
again. But Owens was drowsy and resumed his nap ; but 
only for a minute or two, for presently he turned in his bed, 
his hand dropped over the side and came in contact with the 
cold water ! It was up level with the mattrass ! He waded 
out, breast-deep, almost, and the next moment the sun-burned 
bricks melted down like sugar and the big building crumbled 
to a ruin and was washed away in a twinkling. 

At eleven o'clock only the roof of the little log stable was 
out of water, and our inn was on an island in mid-ocean. As 
far as the eye could reach, in the moonlight, there was no 
desert visible, but only a level waste of shining water. The 
Indians were true prophets, but how did they get their in- 
formation ? I am not able to answer the question. 

We remained cooped up eight days and nights with that 
curious crew. Swearing, drinking and card playing were the 
order of the day, and occasionally a fight was thrown in for 
variety. Dirt and vermin — but let us forget those features ; 
their profusion is simply inconceivable — it is better that they 
remain so. 

There were two men — however, this chapter is long enough. 






OHAPTEE XXXI. 

THERE were two men in the company who caused me partic- , 
ular discomfort. One was a little Swede, abont twenty-five 
years old, who knew only one song, and he was forever singing 
it. By day we were all crowded into one small, stifling bar- 
room, and so there was no escaping this person's music. Through 
all the profanity, whisky-guzzling, " old sledge " and quarrel- 
ing, his monotonous song meandered with never a variation in 
its tiresome sameness, and it seemed to me, at last, that I 
would be content to die, in order to be rid of the torture. The 
other man was a stalwart ruffian called " Arkansas," who car- 
ried two revolvers in his belt and a bowie knife projecting from 
his boot, and who was always drunk and always suffering for 
a fight. But he was so feared, that nobody would accommo- 
date him. He would try all manner of little wary ruses 
to entrap somebody into an offensive remark, and his face 
would light up now and then when he fancied he was fairly 
on the scent of a fight, but invariably his victim would elude 
his toils and then he would show a disappointment that was 
almost pathetic. The landlord, Johnson, was a meek, well- 
meaning fellow, and Arkansas fastened on him early, as a 
promising subject, and gave him no rest day or night, for 
awhile. On the fourth morning, Arkansas got drunk and sat 
himself down to wait for an opportunity. Presently Johnson 
came in, just comfortably sociable with whisky, and said : 

" I reckon the Pennsylvania 'lection — " 

Arkansas raised his finger impressively and Johnson stopped. 
Arkansas rose unsteadily and confronted him. Said he : 



ooo 



NEW CHARACTERS 



" Wha-wliat do you know a-about Pennsylvania ? Answer 
me that. Wha-what do you know 'bout Pennsylvania?" 
" I was only goin' to say — " 

" You was only goin' to say. You was ! You was only 
goin' to say — what was you goin' to say? That's it! That's 
what / want to know. I want to know wha-what you (He) 

what you know about Pennsyl- 
vania, since you're makin' your- 
self so d — d free. Answer me 
that ! " 

" Mr. Arkansas, if you'd only 
let me—" 

"Who's a henderin' you? 
Don't you insinuate nothing 
agin me ! — don't you do it. 
Don't you come in here bullyin' 
around, and cussin' and goin' on 
like a lunatic — don't you do it. 
'Coz / won't stand it. If fight's 
what you want, out with it ! I'm 
your man ! Out with it ! " 

Said Johnson, backing into 
a corner, Arkansas following, 
menacingly : 

" Why, / never said nothing, 
Mr. Arkansas. You don't give 
a man no chance. I was only 
goin' to say that Pennsylvania 
was goin' to have an election 
next week — that was all — that 
was everything I was goin' to 
say — I w ish I may never stir if it wasn't." 

"Well then why d'n't you say it? What did you come 
swellin' around that way for, and tryin' to raise trouble? " 
" Why 1 didn't come swellin' around, Mr. Arkansas— I 

just>-" 

" I'm a liar am I ! Ger-reat Csesar's ghost—" 




MR. ARKANSAS. 



BULLY OLD ARKANSAS. 223 

" Oh, please, Mr. Arkansas, I never meant such a thing as 
that, I wish I may die if I did. All the boys will tell you 
that I've always spoke well of you, and respected you more'n 
any man in the house. Ask Smith. Ain't it so, Smith ? Didn't 
I say, no longer ago than last night, that for a man that was a 
gentleman all the time and every way you took him, give me 
Arkansas ? I'll leave it to any gentleman here if them warn't 
the very words I used. Come, now, Mr. Arkansas, le's take 
a drink — le's shake hands and take a drink. Come up — every- 
body! It's my treat. Come up, Bill, Tom, Bob, Scotty — 
come up. I want you all to take a drink with me and Arkan- 
sas — old Arkansas, I call him — bully old Arkansas. Gimme 
your hand agin. Look at him, boys — just take a look at him. 
Thar stands the whitest man in America ! — and the man that 
denies it has got to fight me, that's all. Gimme that old 
flipper agin ! " 

They embraced, with drunken affection on the landlord's 
part and unresponsive toleration on the part of Arkansas, 
who, bribed by a drink, was disappointed of his prey once 
more. But the foolish landlord was so happy to have escaped 
butchery, that he went on talking when he ought to have 
marched himself out of danger. The consequence was that 
Arkansas shortly began to glower upon him dangerously, 
and presently said : 

" Lan'lord, will you p-please make that remark over agin 
if you please ? " 

" I was a-sayin' to Scotty that my father was up'ards of 
eighty year old when he died." 

" Was that all that you said ? " 

" Yes, that was all." 

" Didn't say nothing but that? " 

" No— nothing." 

Then an uncomfortable silence. 

Arkansas played with his glass a moment, lolling on his 
elbows on the counter. Then he meditatively scratched his 
left shin with his right boot, while the awkward silence con- 
tinued. But presently he loafed away toward the stove, 



224 BOUND FOR A FIGHT. 

looking dissatisfied ; roughly shouldered two or three men 
out of a comfortable position ; occupied it himself, gave a 
sleeping dog a kick that sent him howling under a bench, 
then spread his long legs and his blanket-coat tails apart 
and proceeded to warm his back. In a little while he fell to 
grumbling to himself, and soon he slouched back to the bar 
and said : 

" Lan'lord, what's your idea for rakin' up old personalities 
and blowin' about your father ? Ain't this company agreeable 
to you ? Ain't it ? If this company ain't agreeable to you, 
p'r'aps we'd better leave. Is that your idea? Is that what 
you're coming at ? " 

" Why bless your soul, Arkansas, I warn't thinking of such 
a thing. My father and my mother — " 

" Lan'lord, donH crowd a man ! Don't do it. If nothing'll 
do you but a disturbance, out with it like a man (He) — but 
donH rake up old bygones and fling 'em in the teeth of a passel 
of people that wants to be peaceable if they could git a chance. 
What's the matter with you this mornin', anyway ? I never 
see a man carry on so." 

" Arkansas, I reely didn't mean no harm, and I won't go 
on with it if it's onpleasant to you. I reckon my licker's got 
into my head, and what with the flood, and havin' so many 
to feed and look out for — " 

" So that's what's a-ranklin' in your heart, is it ? You want 
us to leave do you % There's too many on us. You want us 
to pack up and swim. Is that it ? Come ! " 

" Please be reasonable, Arkansas. Now you know that I 
ain't the man to — " 

" Are you a threatenin' me ? Are you ? By George, the 
man don't live that can skeer me ! Don't you try to come 
that game, my chicken — 'cuz I can stand a good deal, but I 
won't stand that. Come out from behind that bar till I clean 
you ! You want to drive us out, do you, you sneakin' under- 
handed hound ! Come out from behind that bar ! Pll learn 
you to bully and badger and browbeat a gentleman that's 
forever trying to befriend you and keep you out of trouble ! " 



A BLOODLESS AFFRAY. 



225 



" Please, Arkansas, please don't shoot ! If there's got to 
be bloodshed — " 

" Do you hear that, gentlemen ? Do you hear him talk 
about bloodshed? So it's blood you want, is it, you ravin' 
desperado ! You'd made up your mind to murder somebody 
this mornin' — I knowed it perfectly well. I'm the man, am 
I? It's me you're goin' to murder, is it? But you can't do 
it 'thout I get one chance first, you thievin' black-hearted, 
white-livered son of a nigger ! Draw your weepon ! " 




AN ARMED ALLY. 



With that, Arkansas began to shoot, and the landlord to 
clamber over benches, men and every sort of obstacle in a 
frantic desire to escape. In the midst of the wild hubbub the 
landlord crashed through a glass door, and as Arkansas charged 
after him the landlord's wife suddenly appeared in the door- 
+15 



226 THE FLOOD SUBSIDES. 

way and confronted the desperado with a pair of scissors ! Her 
fury was magnificent. With head erect and flashing eye she 
stood a moment and then advanced, with her weapon raised. 
The astonished ruffian hesitated, and then fell back a step. 
She followed. She backed him step by step into the middle 
of the bar-room, and then, while the wondering crowd closed 
up and gazed, she gave him such another tongue-lashing as 
never a cowed and shamefaced braggart got before, perhaps ! 
As she finished and retired victorious, a roar of applause shook 
the house, and every man ordered " drinks for the crowd " in 
one and the same breath. 

The lesson was entirely sufficient. The reign of terror was 
over, and the Arkansas domination broken for good. During 
the rest of the season of. island captivity, there was one man 
who sat apart in a state of permanent humiliation, never mix- 
ing in any quarrel or uttering a boast, and never resenting the 
insults the once cringing crew now constantly leveled at him, 
and that man was " Arkansas." 

By the fifth or sixth morning the waters had subsided from 
the land, but the stream in the old river bed was still high and 
swift and there was no possibility of crossing it. On the eighth 
it was still too high for an entirely safe passage, but life in the 
inn had become next to insupportable by reason of the dirt, 
drunkenness, fighting, etc., and so we made an effort to get 
away. In the midst of a heavy snow-storm we embarked in a 
canoe, taking our saddles aboard and towing our horses after us 
by their halters. The Prussian, Ollendorff, was in the bow, with 
a paddle, Ballou paddled in the middle, and I sat in the stern 
holding the halters. When the horses lost their footing and 
began to swim, Ollendorff got frightened, for there was great 
danger that the horses would make our aim uncertain, and it 
was plain that if we failed to land at a certain spot the current 
would throw us off and almost surely cast us into the main 
Carson, which was a boiling torrent, now. Such a catastrophe 
would be death, in all probability, for we would be swept to 
sea in the " Sink " or overturned and drowned. We warned 
Ollendorff to keep his wits about him and handle himself care- 






ANOTHER DISASTER. 



227 



fully, but it was useless ; the moment the bow touched the 
bank, he made a spring and the canoe whirled upside down in 




CROSSING THE FLOOD. 



ten-foot water. Ollendorff seized some brush and dragged 
himself ashore, but Ballou and I had to swim for it, encum- 
bered with our overcoats. But we held on to the canoe, and 
although we were washed down nearly to the Carson, we man- 
aged to push the boat ashore and make a safe landing. We 
were cold and water-soaked, but safe. The horses made a 
landing, too, but our saddles were gone, of course. We tied 
the animals in the sage-brush and there they had to stay for 
twenty-four hours. We baled out the canoe and ferried over 
some food and blankets for them, but we slept one more night 
in the inn before making another venture on our journey. 
The next morning it was still snowing furiously when we 



& 



A NEW START FOR CARSON. 

got away with our new stock of saddles and accoutrements. 
We mounted and started. The snow lay so deep on the 
ground that there was no sign of a road perceptible, and the 
snow-fall was so thick that we could not see more than a hun- 
dred yards ahead, else we could have guided our course by the 
mountain ranges. The case looked dubious, but Ollendorff 
said his instinct was as sensitive as any compass, and that he 
could " strike a bee-line " for Carson city and never diverge 
from it. He said that if he were to straggle a single point out 
of the true line his instinct would assail him like an outraged 
conscience. Consequently we dropped into his wake happy 
and content. For half an hour we poked along warily enough, 
but at the end of that time we came upon a fresh trail, and 
Ollendorff shouted proudly: 

" I knew I was as dead certain as a compass, boys ! Here 
we are, right in somebody's tracks that will hunt the way for 
us without any trouble. Let's hurry up and join company with 
the party." 

So we put the horses into as much of a trot as the deep 
snow would allow, and before long it was evident that we 
were gaining on our predecessors, for the tracks grew more 
distinct. We hurried along, and at the end of an hour the 
tracks looked still newer and .fresher — but what surprised us 
was, that the number of travelers in advance of us seemed to 
steadily increase. We wondered how so large a party came to 
be traveling at such a time and in such a solitude. Somebody 
suggested that it must be a company of soldiers from the fort, 
and so we accepted that solution and jogged along a little faster 
still, for they could not be far off now. But the tracks still 
multiplied, and we began to think the platoon of soldiers was 
miraculously expanding into a regiment — Ballou said they had 
already increased to five hundred ! Presently he stopped his 
horse and said : 

" Boys, these are our own tracks, and we've actually been 
circussing round and round in a circle for more than two 
hours, out here in this blind desert ! By George this is per- 
fectly hydraulic ! " 






RAPID TRAVEL BUT NO ADVANCE. 



229 



Then the old man waxed wroth and abusive. He called 
Ollendorff all manner of hard names — said he never saw 
such a lurid fool as he was, and ended with the peculiarly 
venomous opinion that he " did not know as much as a 
logarithm ! " 

We certainly had been following our own tracks. Ollen- 




ADTAXCE IK A CIRCLE. 



dorff and his "mental compass" were in disgrace from that 
moment. After all our hard travel, here we were on the bank 
of the stream again, with the inn beyond dimly outlined 
through the driving snow-fall. While we were considering 
what to do, the young Swede landed from the canoe and took 
his pedestrian way Carson-wards, singing his same tiresome 
song about his "sister and his brother" and "the child in 
the grave with its mother," and in a short minute faded and 
disappeared in the white oblivion. He was never heard of 



230 



A SAFE LEADER AT LAST 




THE SONGSTER. 



again. He no doubt got bewildered and lost, and Fatigue 
delivered him over to Sleep and Sleep betrayed him to Death. 
Possibly he followed our treacherous tracks till he became ex- 
hausted and dropped. 

Presently the Overland stage 
forded the now fast receding stream 



and started toward Carson on its 
first trip since the flood came. We 
hesitated no longer, now, but took 
up our march in its wake, and trot- 
ted merrily along, for we had good 
confidence in the driver's bump of 
locality. But our horses were no 
match for the fresh stage team. We 
were soon left out of sight ; but it 
was no matter, for we had the deep ruts the wheels made for 
a guide. By this time it was three in the afternoon, and con- 
sequently it was not very long before night came — and not 
with a lingering twilight, but with a sudden shutting down 
like a cellar door, as is its habit in that country. The snow- 
fall was still as thick as ever, and of course we could not see 
fifteen steps before us ; but all about us the white glare of the 
snow-bed enabled us to discern the smooth sugar-loaf mounds 
made by the covered sage-bushes, and just in front of us the 
two faint grooves which we knew were the steadily filling 
and slowly disappearing wheel-tracks. 

Now those sage-bushes were all about the same height — 
three or four feet ; they stood just about seven feet apart, all 
over the vast desert ; each of them was a mere snow-mound, 
now ; in any direction that you proceeded (the same as in a 
well laid out orchard) you would find yourself moving down 
a distinctly defined avenue, with a row of these snow-mounds 
an either side of it — an avenue the customary width of a road, 
nice and level in its breadth, and rising at the sides in the 
most natural way, by reason of the mounds. But we had not 
thought of this. Then imagine the chilly thrill that shot 
through us when it finally occurred to us, far in the night, 



REALIZATION OF UNPLEASANT FACTS. 



231 



that since the last faint trace of the wheel-tracks had long ago 
been buried from sight, we might now be wandering down a 
mere sage-brush avenue, miles away from the road and diverg- 
ing further and further aAvay from it all the time. Having a 
cake of ice slipped down one's back is placid comfort compared 
to it. There was a sudden leap and stir of blood that had 
been asleep for an hour, and as sudden a rousing of all the 
drowsing activities in our minds and bodies. We were alive 
and awake at once — and shaking and quaking with consterna- 
tion, too. There was an instant halting and dismounting, a 
bending low and an anxious scanning of the road-bed. Use- 
less, of course ; for if a faint depression could not be discerned 
from an altitude of four or five feet above it, it certainly could 
not with one's nose nearly against it. 




OHAPTEE XXXII. 

"TTTE seemed to be in a road, but that was no proof. We 
* ▼ tested this by walking off in various directions — the 
regular snow-mounds and the regular avenues between them 
convinced each man that he had found the true road, and that 
the others had found only false ones. Plainly the situation 
was desperate. We were cold and stiff and the horses were 
tired. We decided to build a sage-brush fire and camp out till 
morning. This was wise, because if we were wandering from 
the right road and the snow-storm continued another day our 
case would be the next thing to hopeless if we kept on. 

All agreed that a camp fire was what would come nearest 
to saving us, now, and so we set about building it. We 
could find no matches, and so we tried to make shift with the 
pistols. Not a man in the party had ever tried to do such a 
thing before, but not a man in the party doubted that it could 
be done, and without any trouble — because every man in the 
party had read about it in books many a time and had naturally 
come to believe it, with trusting simplicity, just as he had 
long ago accepted and believed that other common book-fraud 
about Indians and lost hunters making a fire by rubbing two 
dry sticks together. 

We huddled together on our knees in the deep snow, 
and the horses put their noses together and bowed their 
patient heads over us ; and while the feathery flakes eddied 
down and turned us into a group of white statuary, we pro- 
ceeded with the momentous experiment. We broke twigs 



LOST IN THE SNOW WITHOUT FIRE OR HORSES. 233 

from a sage bush and piled them on a little cleared place 
in the shelter of our bodies. In the course of ten or fifteen 
minutes all was ready, and then, while conversation ceased 
and our pulses beat low with anxious suspense, Ollendorff 
applied his revolver, pulled the trigger and blew the pile 
clear out of the county ! It was the flattest failure that ever 
was. 

This was distressing, but it paled before a greater horror — 




A FLAT FAILURE. 



the horses were gone ! I had been appointed to hold the 
bridles, but in my absorbing anxiety over the pistol experi- 
ment I had unconsciously dropped them and the released 
animals had walked off in the storm. It was useless to try to 
follow them, for their footfalls could make no sound, and one 
could pass within two yards of the creatures and never see 
them. We gave them up without an effort at recovering 
them, and cursed the lying books that said horses would stay 



234 



VAIN ATTEMPTS FOR A FIRE 



by tlieir masters for protection and companionship in a distress- 
ful time like ours. 



We were miserable 



enough, 



before : we felt still more 



forlorn, now. Patiently, but with blighted hope, we broke 
more sticks and piled them, and once more the Prussian shot 
them into annihilation. Plainly, to light a fire with a pistol 
was an art requiring practice and experience, and the middle 
of a desert at midnight in a snow-storm was not a good 
place or time for the acquiring of the accomplishment. We 
gave it up and tried the other. Each man took a couple of 
sticks and fell to chafing them together. At the end of half 
an hour we were thoroughly chilled, and so were the sticks. 
We bitterly execrated the Indians, the hunters and the books 
that had betrayed us with the silly device, and wondered dis- 
mally what was next to be done. At this critical moment 
Mr. Ballon fished out four matches from the rubbish of an 
overlooked pocket. To have found four gold bars would have 
seemed poor and cheap good luck compared to this. One 

cannot think how 
good a match looks 
under such ciu- 
cum stances — or 
how lovable and 
gj gggj ij precious, and sa- 
credly beautiful to 
the eye. This time 
we gathered sticks 
with high hopes; 
and when Mr. Bal- 
lou prepared to 
light the first 
match, there was 

THE LAST MATCH. „ . 

an amount 01 in- 
terest centred upon him that pages of writing could not 
describe. The match burned hopefully a moment, and then 
went out. It could not have carried more regret with it if it 
had been a human life. The next match simply flashed and 




COMPARISON OF OUR THOUGHTS. 235 

died. The wind puffed the third one out just as it was on 
the imminent verge of success. We gathered together closer 
than ever, and developed a solicitude that was rapt and pain- 
ful, as Mr. Ballou scratched our last hope on his leg. It lit, 
burned blue and sickly, and then budded into a robust flame. 
Shading it with his hands, the old gentleman bent gradually- 
down and every heart went with him — everybody, too, for that 
matter — and blood and breath stood still. The flame touched 
the sticks at last, took gradual hold upon them — hesitated — 
took a stronger hold — hesitated again — held its breath five 
heart-breaking seconds, then gave a sort of human gasp and 
went out. 

Nobody said a word for several minutes. It was a solemn 
sort of silence ; even the wind put on a stealthy, sinister quiet, 
and made no more noise than the falling flakes of snow. 
Finally a sad-voiced conversation began, and it was soon 
apparent that in each of our hearts lay the conviction that this 
was our last night with the living. I had so hoped that I was 
the only one who felt so. When the others calmly acknowl- 
edged their conviction, it sounded like the summons itself. 
Ollendorff said: 

" Brothers, let us die together. And let us go without one 
hard feeling towards each other. Let us forget and forgive 
bygones. I know that you have felt hard towards me for turn- 
ing over the canoe, and for knowing too much and leading you 
round and round in the snow — but I meant well ; forgive me. 
I acknowledge freely that I have had hard feelings against Mr. 
Ballou for abusing me and calling me a logarythm, which is a 
thing I do not know what, but no doubt a thing considered 
disgraceful and unbecoming in America, and it has scarcely 
been out of my mind and has hurt me a great deal — but let 
it go ; I forgive Mr. Ballou with all my heart, and — " 

Poor Ollendorff broke down and the tears came. He was 
not alone, for I was crying too, and so was Mr. Ballou. 
Ollendorff got his voice again and forgave me for things I had 
done and said. Then he got out his bottle of whisky and said 
that whether he lived or died he would never touch another 



236 WE MOURN OVER OUR EVIL LIVES. 

drop. He said he had given up all hope of life, and although 
ill-prepared, was ready to submit humbly to his fate ; that he 
wished he could be spared a little longer, not for any selfish 
reason, but to make a thorough reform in his character, and by 
devoting himself to helping the poor, nursing the sick, and 
pleading with the people to guard themselves against the 
evils of intemperance, make his life a beneficent example to 
the young, and lay it down at last with the precious reflection 
that it had not been lived in vain. He ended by saying that 
his reform should begin at this moment, even here in the 
presence of death, since no longer time was to be vouchsafed 
wherein to prosecute it to men's help and benefit — and with 
that he threw away the bottle of whisky. 

Mr. Ballou made remarks of similar purport, and began 
the reform he could not live to continue, by throwing away 
the ancient pack of cards that had solaced our captivity during 
the flood and made it bearable. He said he never gambled, but 
still was satisfied that the meddling with cards in any way was 
y ^ immoral and injurious, and no 



man could be wholly pure and 
blemishless without eschew- 
ing them. " And therefore," 
continued he, "in doing this 
act I already feel more in 
sympathy with that spiritual 
saturnalia necessary to entire 
and obsolete reform." These 
rolling syllables touched him 
as no intelligible eloquence 
could have done, and the old man sobbed with a mournful- 
ness not unmingled with satisfaction. 

My own remarks were of the same tenor as those of 
my comrades, and I know that the feelings that prompted 
them were heartfelt and sincere. We were all sincere, 
and all deeply moved and earnest, for we were in the pres- 
ence of death and without hope. I threw away my pipe, 
and in doin^ it felt that at last I was free of a hated vice 




DISCARDED VICES. 



APPARENTLY THE END. 



237 



and one that had ridden me like a tyrant all my days. While 
I yet talked, the thought of the good I might have done in 
the world and the still greater good I might now do, with 
these new incentives and higher and better aims to guide me 
if I could only be spared a few years longer, overcame me 
and the tears came again. We put our arms about each 
other's necks and awaited the warning drowsiness that pre- 
cedes death by freezing. 

It came stealing over us presently, and then we bade each 
other a last farewell. A delicious dreaminess wrought its web 
about my yielding senses, while the snow-flakes wove a wind- 
ing sheet about my conquered body. Oblivion came. The 
battle of life was done. 




OHAPTEE XXXIII. 

I DO not know how long I was in a state of forgetfulness, 
but it seemed an age. A vague consciousness grew upon 
me by degrees, and then came a gathering anguish of pain in 
my limbs and through all my body. I shuddered. The thought 
flitted through my brain, " this is death — this is the hereafter." 

Then came a white upheaval at my side, and a voice said, 
with bitterness : 

"Will some gentleman be so good as to kick me behind?" 

It was Ballou — at least it was a towzled snow image in a 
sitting posture, with Ballou's voice. 

I rose up, and there in the gray dawn, not fifteen steps 
from us, were the frame buildings of a stage station, and under 
a shed stood our still saddled and bridled horses ! 

An arched snow-drift broke up, now, and Ollendorff 
emerged from it, and the three of us sat and stared at the 
houses without speaking a word. We really had nothing to 
say. We were like the profane man who could not " do the 
subject justice," the whole situation was so painfully ridiculous 
and humiliating that words were tame and we did not know 
where to commence anyhow. 

The joy in our hearts at our deliverance was poisoned ; 
well-nigh dissipated, indeed. We presently began to grow 
pettish by degrees, and sullen ; and then, angry at each other, 
angry at ourselves, angry at everything in general, we moodily 
dusted the snow from our clothing and in unsociable single 
file plowed our way to the horses, unsaddled them, and sought 
shelter in the station. 

I have scarcely exaggerated a detail of this curious and 



FRUITS OF OUR REFORM. 239 

absurd adventure. It occurred almost exactly as I have stated 
it. We actually went into camp in a snow-drift in a desert, at 
midnight in a storm, forlorn and hopeless, within fifteen steps 
of a comfortable inn. 

For two hours we sat apart in the station and ruminated in 
disgust. The mystery was gone, now, and it was plain enough 
why the horses had deserted us. Without a doubt they were 
under that shed a quarter of a minute after they had left us, 
and they must have overheard and enjoyed all our confessions 
and lamentations. 

After breakfast we felt . better, and the zest of life soon 
came back. The world looked bright again, and existence 
was as dear to us as ever. Presently an uneasiness came over 
me — grew upon me — assailed me without ceasing. Alas, my 
regeneration was not complete — I wanted to smoke ! I re- 
sisted with all my strength, but the flesh was weak. I wan- 
dered away alone and wrestled with myself an hour. I 
recalled my promises of reform and preached to myself 
persuasively, upbraidingly, exhaustively. But it was all vain, 
I shortly found myself sneaking among the snow-drifts hunt- 
ing for my pipe. I discovered it after a considerable search, 
and crept away to hide myself and enjoy it. I remained 
behind the barn a good while, asking myself how I would 
feel if my braver, stronger, truer comrades should catch me in 
my degradation. At last I lit the pipe, and no human being 
can feel meaner and baser than I did then. I was ashamed 
of being in my own pitiful company. Still dreading discovery, 
I felt that perhaps the further side of the barn would be some- 
what safer, and so I turned the corner. As I turned the one 
corner, smoking, Ollendorff turned the other with his bottle 
to his lips, and between us sat unconscious Ballou deep in 
a game of " solitaire " with the old greasy cards ! 

Absurdity could go no farther. We shook hands and 
agreed to say no more about " reform " and " examples to the 
rising generation." 

The station we were at was at the verge of the Twenty-six- 
Mile Desert. If we had approached it half an hour earlier 



240 



CARSON, AND WHAT WE SAW THERE. 



the night before, we must have heard men shouting there and 
firing pistols ; for they were expecting some sheep drovers 




IT WAS THUS WE MET. 



and their flocks and knew that they would infallibly get lost 
and wander out of reach of help unless guided by sounds. 
While we remained at the station, three of the drovers arrived, 
nearly exhausted with their wanderings, but two others of 
their party were never heard of afterward. 

We reached Carson in due time, and took a rest. This 
rest, together with preparations for the journey to Esmeralda, 
kept us there a week, and the delay gave us the opportunity 
to be present at the trial of the great land-slide case of Hyde 
vs. Morgan — an episode which is famous in Nevada to this 
day. After a word or two of necessary explanation, I will set 
down the history of this singular affair just as it transpired. 



CHAPTEE XXXIT. 

THE mountains are very high and steep about Carson, 
Eagle and "Washoe Valleys — very high and very steep, 
and so when the snow gets to melting off fast in the Spring 
and the warm surface-earth begins to moisten and soften, the 
disastrous land-slides commence. The reader cannot know 
what a land-slide is, unless he has lived in that country and 
seen the whole side of a mountain taken off some fine morning 
and deposited down in the valley, leaving a vast, treeless, 
unsightly scar upon the mountain's front to keep the circum- 
stance fresh in his memory all the years that he may go on 
}i>i ing within seventy miles of that place. 

General Buncombe was shipped out to Nevada in the 
invoice of Territorial officers, to be United States Attorney. 
Ha considered himself a lawyer of parts, and he very much 
wanted an opportunity to manifest it — partly for the pure 
gratification of it and partly because his salary was Territo- 
rially meagre (which is a strong expression). Now the older 
citizens of a new territory look down upon the rest of the 
world with a calm, benevolent compassion, as long as it keeps 
out of the way — when it gets in the way they snub it. Some- 
times this latter takes the shape of a practical joke. 

One morning Dick Hyde rode furiously up to General 
Buncombe's door in Carson city and rushed into his presence 
without stopping to tie his horse. He seemed much excited. 
He told the General that he wanted him to conduct a suit for 
him and would pay him five hundred dollars if he achieved a 
victory. And then, with violent gestures and a world of 
profanity, he poured out his griefs. He said it was pretty 
16f 



24:2 



HOW DICK HYDE LOS'i HIS RANCH. 



well known that for some years lie had been farming (or 
ranching as the more customary term is) in Washoe District, 
and making a successful thing of it, and furthermore it was 
known that his ranch was situated just in the edge of the 
valley, and that Tom Morgan owned a ranch immediately 
above it on the mountain side. And now the trouble was, that 
one of those hated and dreaded land-slides had come and slid 

Morgan's ranch, 
fences, cabins, cattle, 
barns and everything 
down on top of his 
ranch and exactly 
covered up every 
single vestige of his 
property, to a depth 
of about thirty-eight 
feet. Morgan was 
in possession and re- 
fused to vacate the 
premises — s aid 
was occupying 
own cabin and not 
interfering with any- 
body else's — and said 
the cabin was stand- 
ing on the same dirt 
and same ranch it had always stood on, 
and he would like to see anybody make 
him vacate. 

taking possession. " And when I reminded him," said 

Hyde, weeping, " that it was on top of my ranch and that he 
was trespassing, he had the infernal meanness to ask me why 
didn't I stay on my ranch and hold possession when I see him 
a-coming ! Why didn't I stay on it, the blathering lunatic— 
by George, when I heard that racket and looked up that hill it 
was just like the whole world was a-ripping and a-tearing 
down that mountain side — splinters, and cord-wood, thunder 
and lightning, hail and snow, odds and ends of hay stacks, 







HOW MORGAN OVERTOOK HIM. 243 

and awful clouds of dust ! — trees going end over end in the 
air, rocks as big as a house jumping 'bout a thousand feet 
high and busting into ten million pieces, cattle turned inside 
out and a-coming head on with their tails hanging out be- 
tween their teeth ! — and in the midst of all that wrack and 
destruction sot that cussed Morgan on his gate-post, a-wonder- 
ing why I didn't stay and hold possession / Laws bless me, 
I just took one glimpse, General, and lit out'n the county in 
three jumps exactly. 

" But what grinds me is that that Morgan hangs on there 
and won't move off 'n that ranch — says it's his'n and he's going 
to keep it — likes it better'n he did when it was higher up the 
hill. Mad ! Well, I've been so mad for two days I couldn't 
find my way to town — been wandering around in the brush 
in a starving condition — got anything here to drink, General ? 
But I'm here now, and I'm a-going to law. You hear me ! " 

Never in all the world, perhaps, were a man's feelings so 
outraged as were the General's. He said he had never heard 
of such high-handed conduct in all his life as this Morgan's. 
And he said there was no use in going to law — Morgan had 
no shadow of right to remain where he was — nobody in the 
wide world would uphold him in it, and no lawyer would take 
his case and no judge listen to it. Hyde said that right there 
was where he was mistaken — everybody in town sustained 
Morgan ; Hal Bray ton, a very smart lawyer, had taken his 
case ; the courts being in vacation, it was to be tried before a 
referee, and ex-Governor Hoop had already been appointed to 
that office and would open his court in a large public hall near 
the hotel at two that afternoon. 

The General was amazed. He said he had suspected be- 
fore that the people of that Territory were fools, and now he 
knew it. But he said rest easy, rest easy and collect the wit- 
nesses, for the victory was just as certain as if the conflict 
were already over. Hyde wiped away his tears and left. 

At two in the afternoon referee Hoop's Court opened, and 
Eoop appeared throned among his sheriffs, the witnesses, 
and spectators, and wearing upon his face a solemnity so 
awe-inspiring that some of his fellow-conspirators had misgiv- 



2U 



PEEP A RATION FOR THE TRIAL. 



ings that maybe he had not comprehended, after all, that this 
was merely a joke. An unearthly stillness prevailed, for at 
the slightest noise the judge uttered sternly the command : 

" Order in the Court ! " 

And the sheriffs promptly echoed it. Presently the 
General elbowed his way through the crowd of spectators, 
with his arms full of law-books, and on his ears fell an order 
from the judge which was the first respectful recognition of 
his high official dignity that had ever saluted them, and it 
trickled pleasantly through his whole system : 

"Way for the United States Attorney ! " 

The witnesses were called — legislators, high government 




GREAT EFFORT. 



officers, ranchmen, miners, Indians, Chinamen, negroes. Three 
fourths of them were called by the defendant Morgan, but no 
matter, their testimony invariably went in favor of the plain- 



GENERAL BUNCOMBE IN COURT. 24:5 

tiff Hyde. Each new witness only added new testimony to 
the absurdity of a man's claiming to own another man's prop- 
erty because his farm had slid down on top of it. Then the 
Morgan lawyers made their speeches, and seemed to make sin- 
gularly weak ones — they did really nothing to help the Morgan 
cause. And now the General, with exultation in his face, got 
up and made an impassioned effort; he pounded the. table, he 
banged the law-books, he shouted, and roared, and howled, he 
quoted from everything and everybody, poetry, sarcasm, sta- 
tistics, history, pathos, bathos, blasphemy, and wound up with 
a grand war-whoop for free speech, freedom of the press, free 
schools, the Glorious Bird of America and the principles of 
eternal justice ! [Applause.] 

When the General sat down, he did it with the convic- 
tion that if there was anything in good strong testimony, a 
great speech and believing and admiring countenances all 
around, Mr. Morgan's case was killed. Ex-Governor Roop 
leant his head upon his hand for some minutes, thinking, and 
the still audience waited for his decision. Then he got up 
and stood erect, with bended head, and thought again. Then 
he walked the floor with long, deliberate strides, his chin in 
his hand, and still the audience waited. At last he returned 
to his throne, seated himself, and began, impressively : 

" Gentlemen, I feel the great responsibility that rests upon 
me this day. This is no ordinary case. On the contrary it is 
plain that it is the most solemn and awful that ever man was 
called upon to decide. Gentlemen, I have listened attentively 
to the evidence, and have perceived that the weight of it, the 
overwhelming weight of it, is in favor of the plaintiff Hyde. 
I have listened also to the remarks of counsel, with high 
interest — and especially will I commend the masterly and 
irrefutable logic of the distinguished gentleman who repre- 
sents the plaintiff. But gentlemen, let us beware how we 
allow mere human testimony, human ingenuity in argument 
and human ideas of equity, to influence us at a moment so 
solemn as this. Gentlemen, it ill becomes us, worms as we are, 
to meddle with the decrees of Heaven. It is plain to me that 



246 



A VERDICT WITHOUT APPEAL. 



Heaven, in its inscrutable wisdom, has seen tit to move this 
defendant's ranch for a purpose. We are but creatures, and 
we must submit. If Heaven has chosen to favor the defendant 
Morgan in this marked and wonderful manner ; and if Heaven, 
dissatisfied with the position of the Morgan ranch upon the 
mountain side, has chosen to remove it to a position more 
eligible and more advantageous for its owner, it ill becomes 
us, insects as we are, to question the legality of the act or 
inquire into the reasons that prompted it. No — Heaven created 
the ranches and it is Heaven's prerogative to rearrange them, 
to experiment with them, to shift them around at its pleasure. 




REARRANGING AND SHIFTING. 



It is for us to submit, without repining. I warn yon that this 
thing which has happened is a thing with which the sacri- 
legious hands and brains and tongues of men must not meddle. 
Gentlemen, it is the verdict of this court that the plaintiff 



A SERIOUS AFTERTHOUGHT. 247 

Richard Hyde, has been deprived of his ranch by the visita- 
tion of God ! And from this decision there is no appeal." 

Buncombe seized his cargo of law-books and plunged out 
of the court-room frantic with indignation. He pronounced 
Hoop to be a miraculous fool, an inspired idiot. In all good 
faith he returned at night and remonstrated with Hoop upon 
his extravagant decision, and implored him to walk the floor 
and think for half an hour, and see if he could not figure out 
some sort of modification of the verdict. Roop yielded at last 
and got up to walk. He walked two hours and a half, and at 
last his face lit up happily and he told Buncombe it had oc- 
curred to him that the ranch underneath the new Morgan ranch 
still belonged to Hyde, that his title to the ground was just 
as good as it had ever been, and therefore he was of opinion 
that Hyde had a right to dig it out from under there and — 

The General never waited to hear the end of it. He was 
always an impatient and irascible man, that way. At the end 
of two months the fact that he had been played upon with a 
joke had managed to bore itself, like another Hoosac Tunnel, 
through the solid adamant of his understanding. 



OHAPTEE XXXV. 

"TTT^HE^N" we finally left for Esmeralda, horseback, we had 
▼ V an addition to the company in the person of Capt. 
John Nye, the Governor's brother. He had a good memory, 
and a tongue hung in the middle. This is a combination 
which gives immortality to conversation. Capt. John never 
suffered the talk to flag or falter once during the hundred and 
twenty miles of the journey. In addition to his conversa- 
tional powers, he had one or two other endowments of a 
marked character. One was a singular "handiness" about 
doing anything and everything, from laying out a railroad or 
organizing a political party, down to sewing on buttons, shoe- 
ing a horse, or setting a broken leg, or a hen. Another was a 
spirit of accommodation that prompted him to take the needs, 
difficulties and perplexities of anybody and everybody upon 
his own shoulders at any and all times, and dispose of them 
with admirable facility and alacrity— hence he always managed 
to find vacant beds in crowded inns, and plenty to eat in the 
emptiest larders. And finally, wherever he met a man, 
woman or child, in camp, inn or desert, he either knew such 
parties personally or had been acquainted with a relative of 
the same. Such another traveling comrade was never seen 
before. I cannot forbear giving a specimen of the way in 
which he overcame difficulties. On the second day out, we 
arrived, very tired and hungry, at a poor little inn in the 
desert, and were told that the house was full, no provisions on 
hand, and neither hay nor barley to spare for the horses — we 
must move on. The rest of us wanted to hurry on while it 



A MAN WITH BAD TRAITS. 249 

was jet light, but Capt. John insisted on stopping awhile. 
We dismounted and entered. There was no welcome for us 
on any face. Capt. John began his blandishments, and within 
twenty minutes he had accomplished the following things, 
viz. : found old acquaintances in three teamsters ; discovered 
that he used to go to school with the landlord's mother; 
recognized his wife as a lady whose life he had saved once in 
California, by stopping her runaway horse ; mended a child's 
broken toy and won the favor of its mother, a guest of the 
inn; helped the hostler bleed a horse, and prescribed for 
another horse that had the " heaves " ; treated the entire party 
three times at the landlord's bar ; produced a later paper than 
anybody had seen for a week and sat himself down to read the 
news to a deeply interested audience. The result, summed 
up, was as follows : The hostler found plenty of feed for our 
horses ; we had a trout supper, an exceedingly sociable time after 
it, good beds to sleep in, and a surprising breakfast in the 
morning — and when we left, we left lamented by all ! Capt. 




WE LEFT LAMENTED. 



John had some bad traits, but he had some uncommonly valu- 
able ones to offset them with. 

Esmeralda was in many respects another Humboldt, but 
in a little more forward state. The claims we had been 
paying assessments on were entirely worthless, and we threw 
them away. The principal one cropped out of the top of a 
knoll that was fourteen feet high, and the inspired Board of 



250 



BASE OPERATIONS LOOKED INTO. 



Directors were running a tunnel under that knoll to strike the 
ledge. The tunnel would have to be seventy feet long, and 
would then strike the ledge at the same depth that a shaft 
twelve feet deep would have reached ! The Board were living 
on the " assessments." [1ST. B. — This hint comes too late for the 
enlightenment of New York silver miners ; they have already 
learned all about this neat trick by experience.] The Board 
had no desire to strike the ledge, knowing that it was as barren 
of silver as a curbstone. This reminiscence calls to mind Jim 
Townsend's tunnel. He had paid assessments on a mine 
called the " Daley " till he was well-nigh penniless. Finally 
an assessment was levied to run a tunnel two hundred and fifty 
feet on the Daley, and Townsend went up on the hill to look 
into matters. He found the Daley cropping out of the apex 







PICTURE OF TOWNSEND'S TUNNEL. 

,of an exceedingly sharp-pointed peak, and a couple of men up 
there " facing " the proposed tunnel. Townsend made a cat 
culation. Then he said to the men : 

u So you have taken a contract to run a tunnel into this 
hill two hundred and fifty feet to strike this ledge I w 

"Yes, sir." 



BOTTOM TOUCHED AT LAST. 251 

" Well, do you know that you have got one of the most 
expensive and arduous undertakings before you that was ever 
conceived by man ? " 

"Why no— how is that?" 

" Because this hill is only twenty-five feet through from 
side to side; and so you have got to build two hundred and 
twenty-five feet of your tunnel on trestle-work ! " 

The ways of silver mining Boards are exceedingly dark 
and sinuous. 

We took up various claims, and commenced shafts and 
tunnels on them, but never finished any of them. We had to 
do a certain amount of work on each to "hold" it, else other 
parties could seize our property after the expiration of ten 
days. We were always hunting up new claims and doing a 
little work on them and then waiting for a buyer — who never 
came. We never found any ore that would yield more than 
fifty dollars a ton ; and as the mills charged fifty dollars a 
ton for working ore and extracting the silver, our pocket- 
money melted steadily away and none returned to take its 
place. We lived in a little cabin and cooked for ourselves ; 
and altogether it was a hard life, though a hopeful one — for 
we never ceased to expect fortune and a customer to burst 
upon us some day. 

At last, when flour reached a dollar a pound, and money 
could not be borrowed on the best security at less than eight 
per cent a month (I being without the security, too), I aban- 
doned mining and went to milling. That is to say, I went to 
work as a common laborer in a quartz mill, at ten dollars a 
week and board. 



CHAPTEE XXXVI. 

I HAD already learned how hard and long and dismal a task 
it is to burrow down into the bowels of the earth and get 
out the coveted ore ; and now I learned that the burrowing 
was only half the work ; and that to get the silver out of the 
ore was the dreary and laborious other half of it. We had to 
turn out at six in the morning and keep at it till dark. This 
mill was a six-stamp affair, driven by steam. Six tall, upright 
rods of iron, as large as a man's ankle, and heavily shod with 
a mass of iron and steel at their lower ends, were framed 
together like a gate, and these rose and fell, one after the 
other, in a ponderous dance, in an iron box called a " battery." 
Each of these rods or stamps weighed six hundred pounds. 
One of us stood by the battery all day long, breaking up 
masses of silver-bearing rock with a sledge and shoveling it 
into the battery. The ceaseless dance of the stamps pulver- 
ized the rock to powder, and a stream of water that trickled 
into the battery turned it to a creamy paste. The minutest 
particles were driven through a fine wire screen which fitted 
close around the battery, and were washed into great tubs 
warmed by super-heated steam — amalgamating pans, they are 
called. The mass of pulp in the pans was kept constantly 
stirred up by revolving "mullers." A quantity of quicksilver 
was kept always in the battery, and this seized some of the 
liberated gold and silver particles and held on to them; quick- 
silver was shaken in a fine shower into the pans, also, about 
every half hour, through a buckskin sack. Quantities of 



AT WORK IN A QUARTZ MILL, 



253 



coarse salt and sulphate of copper were added, from time to 
time to assist the amalgamation by destroying base metals 
which coated the gold and silver and would not let it unite 
with the quicksilver. All these tiresome things we had to 




QUARTZ MILL IN NEVADA. 

attend to constantly. Streams of dirty water flowed always 
from the pans and were carried off in broad wooden troughs 
to the ravine. One would not suppose that atoms of gold and 
silver would float on top of six inches of water, but they did ; 
and in order to catch them, coarse blankets were laid in the 
troughs, and little obstructing "riffles" charged with quick- 
silver were placed here and there across the troughs also. 
These riffles had to be cleaned and the blankets washed out 
every evening, to get their precious accumulations — and after 
all this eternity of trouble one third of the silver and gold in 
a ton of rock would find its way to the end of the troughs in 
the ravine at last and have to be worked over again some day. 
There is nothing so aggravating as silver milling. There 
never was any idle time in that mill. There was always 
something to do. It is a pity that Adam could not have gone 



2.54 WASHING BLANKETS AND "SCREENING TAILINGS, 



straight out of Eden into a quartz mill, in order to understand 
the full force of his doom to " earn his bread by the sweat of 
his brow." Every now and then, during the day, we had to 
scoop some pulp out of the pans, and tediously "wash" it in a 
horn spoon — wash it little by little over the edge till at last 
nothing was left but some little dull globules of quicksilver in 
the bottom. If they were soft and yielding, the pan needed 
some salt or some sulphate of copper or some other chemical 
rubbish to assist digestion ; if they were crisp to the touch and 
would retain a dint, they were freighted with all the silver and 
gold they could seize and hold, and consequently the pans 
needed a fresh charge of quicksilver. When there was noth- 
ing else to do, one could always " screen tailings." That is to 
say, he could shovel up the dried sand that had washed down 
to the ravine through the troughs and dash it against an up- 
right wire screen to free it from pebbles and prepare it for 




ANOTHER PROCESS OF AMALGAMATION. 



working over. The process of amalgamation differed in the 
various mills, and this included changes in style of pans and 
other machinery, and a great diversity of opinion existed as to 
the best in use, but none of the methods employed, involved. 



MAKING SILVER BRICKS. 255 

the principle of milling ore without " screening the tailings." 
Of all recreations in the world, screening tailings on a hot 
day, with a long-handled shovel, is the most undesirable. 

At the end of the week the machinery was stopped and 
we " cleaned up." That is to say, we got the pulp out of the 
pans and batteries, and washed the mud patiently away till 
nothing was left but the long accumulating mass of quicksilver, 
with its imprisoned treasures. This we made into heavy, 
compact snow-balls, and piled them up in a bright, luxurious 
heap for inspection. Making these snow-balls cost me a fine 
gold ring — that and ignorance together; for the quicksilver 
invaded the ring with the same facility with which water sat- 
urates a sponge — separated its particles and the ring crumbled 
to pieces. 

We put our pile of quicksilver balls into an iron retort 
that had a pipe leading from it to a pail of water, and then 
applied a roasting heat. The quicksilver turned to vapor, 
escaped through the pipe into the pail, and the water turned 
it into good wholesome quicksilver again. Quicksilver is veiy 
costly, and they never waste it. On opening the retort, there 
was our week's work — a lump of pure white, frosty looking 
silver, twice as large as a man's head. Perhaps a fifth of the 
mass was gold, but the color of it did not show — would not 
have shown if two thirds of it had been gold. We melted it 
up and made a solid brick of it by pouring it into an iron 
brick-mould. 

By such a tedious and laborious process were silver bricks 
obtained. This mill was but one of many others in operation 
at the time. The first one in Nevada was built at Egan Can- 
yon and was a small insignificant affair and compared most 
unfavorably with some of the immense establishments after- 
wards located at Virginia City and elsewhere. 

From our bricks a little corner was chipped off for the 
" fire-assay" — a method used to determine the proportions of 
gold, silver and base metals in the mass. This is an interest- 
ing process. The chip is hammered out as thin as paper and 
weighed on scales so fine and sensitive that if you weigh a 



256 



"FIRE-ASSAY" PROCESS. 



two-inch scrap of paper on them and then write your name on 
the paper with a course, soft pencil and weigh it again, the 




TIEST QUARTZ MILL IN NEVADA. 

scales will take marked notice of the addition. Then a little 
lead (also weighed) is rolled up with the flake of silver and 
the two are melted at a great heat in a small vessel called a 
cupel, made by compressing bone ashes into a cup-shape in a 
steel mold. The base metals oxydize and are absorbed with 
the lead into the pores of the cupel. A button or globule of 
perfectly pure gold and silver is left behind, and by weighing 
it and noting the loss, the assayer knows the proportion of base 
metal the brick contains. He has to separate the gold from 
the silver now. The button is hammered out flat and thin, 
put in the furnace and kept some time at a red heat ; after 
cooling it off it is rolled up like a quill and heated in a glass 
vessel containing nitric acid ; the acid dissolves the silver and 
leaves the gold pure and ready to be weighed on its own merits. 



ASSAYING AS A BUSINESS. 



257 



Then salt water is poured into the vessel containing the dis- 
solved silver and the silver returns to palpable form again and 
sinks to the bottom. Nothing now remains but to weigh it ; 
then the proportions of the several metals contained in the 
brick are known, and the assayer stamps the value of the brick 
upon its surface. 

The sagacious reader will know now, without being told, 
that the speculative miner, in getting a "lire-assay" made of a 
piece of rock from his mine (to help him sell the same), was 
not in the habit of picking out the least valuable fragment of 
rock on his dump-pile, but quite the contrary. I have seen 
men hunt over a pile of nearly worthless quartz for an hour, 
and at last find a little piece as large as a filbert, which was 
rich in gold and silver — and this was reserved for a fire-assay ! 
Of course the fire-assay would demonstrate that a ton of such 

rock would yield hundreds 
of dollars — and on such as- 
says many an utterly worth- 
less mine was sold. 

Assaying was a good 
business, and so some men 
engaged in it, occasionally, 
who were not strictly sci- 
entific and capable. One 
assayer got such rich results 
out of all specimens brought 
to him that in time he 
acquired almost a monopoly 
of the business. But like 
all men who achieve success, 
he became an object of envy 
and suspicion. The other 
assayers entered into a 
conspiracy against him, and let some prominent citizens into 
the secret in order to show that they meant fairly. Then they 
broke a little fragment off a carpenter's grindstone and got a 
stranger to take it to the popular scientist and get it assayed. 
17f 




A SLICE OF RICH ORE. 



25S A STRIKE FOR HIGHER WAGES. 

Iii the course of an hour the result came — whereby it ap- 
peared that a ton of that rock would yield $1,284.40 in silver 
and $366.36 in gold ! 

Due publication of the whole matter was made in the 
paper, and the popular assayer left town " between two days." 

I will remark, in passing, that I only remained in the 
milling business one week. I told my employer I could not 
stay longer without an advance in my wages; that I liked 
quartz milling, indeed was infatuated with it; that I had 
never before grown so tenderly attached to an occupation in 
so short a time ; that nothing, it seemed to me, gave such 
scope to intellectual activity as feeding a battery and screening 
tailings, and nothing so stimulated the moral attributes as 
retorting bullion and washing blankets — still, I felt constrained 
to ask an increase of salary. 

He said he was paying me ten dollars a week, and thought 
it a good round sum. How much did I want ? 

I said about four hundred thousand dollars a month, and 
board, was about all I could reasonably ask, considering the 
hard times. 

I was ordered off the premises ! And yet, when I look 
back to those days and call to mind the exceeding hardness of 
the labor I performed in that mill, I only regret that I did not 
ask him seven hundred thousand. 

Shortly after this I began to grow crazy, along with the 
rest of the population, about the mysterious and wonderful 
"cement mine," and to make preparations to take advantage 
of any opportunity that might offer to go and helr> hunt for it. 



CHAPTER XXXYII. 

IT was somewhere in the neighborhood of Mono Lake that 
the marvellous Whiteman cement mine was supposed to 
lie. Every now and then it would be reported that Mr. W. 
had passed stealthily through Esmeralda at dead of night, in 
disguise, and then we would have a wild excitement — because 
he must be steering for his secret mine, and now was the time 
to follow him. In less than three hours after daylight all the 
horses and mules and donkeys in the vicinity would be bought, 
hired or stolen, and half the community would be off for the 
mountains, following in the wake of Whiteman. But W. would 
drift about through the mountain gorges for days together, in 
a purposeless sort of way, until the provisions of the miners ran 
out, and they would have to go back home. I have known it 
reported at eleven at night, in a large mining camp, that White- 
man had just passed through, and in two hours the streets, so 
quiet before, would be swarming wrth men and animals. 
Every individual would be trying to be very secret, but yet 
venturing to whisper to just one neighbor that W. had passed 
through. And long before daylight — this in the dead of Win- 
ter — the stampede would be complete, the camp deserted, and 
the whole population gone chasing after W. 

The tradition was that in the early immigration, more than 
twenty years ago, three young Germans, brothers, who had 
survived an Indian massacre on the Plains, wandered on foot 
through the deserts, avoiding all trails and roads, and simply 
holding a westerly direction and hoping to find California 
before they starved, or died of fatigue. And in a gorge in the 
mountains they sat down to rest one day, when one of them 



260 



THE WONDERFUL CEMENT MINE 



noticed a curious vein of cement running along the ground, 
shot full of lumps of dull yellow metal. They saw that it was 
gold, and that here was a fortune to be acquired in a single day. 
The vein was about as wide as a curbstone, and fully two thirds 
of it was pure gold. Every pound of the wonderful cement was 

worth well-nigh $200. Each 
of the brothers loaded him- 
self with aooui twenty-five 
pounds of it, and then they 
covered up all traces of the 
vein, made a rude drawing 
of the locality and the prin- 
cipal landmarks in the vicin 
ity, and started westward 
again. But troubles thick- 
ened about them. In their 
gig wanderings one brother fell 
and broke his leg, and 
the others were obliged to 
fj^iy go on and leave him to die 
r in the wilderness. Another, 
worn out and starving, gave 
up by and by, and laid down 
to die, but after two or three 
weeks of incredible hard- 
ships, the third reached the 
settlements of California ex- 
hausted, sick, and his mind 
deranged by his sufferings. 
He had thrown away all his 
cement but a few fragments, 
but these were sufficient to 
set everybody wild with excitement. However, he had had 
enough of the cement country, and nothing could induce him 
to lead a party thither. He was entirely content to work on 
a farm for wages. But he gave "Whiteman his map, and 
described the cement region as well as he could, and thus 




THE SAVED BROTHER. 



A SECRET EXPEDITION. 261 

transferred th«> curse to that gentleman — for when I had my 
one accidental glimpse of Mr. W. in Esmeralda he had been 
hunting for the lost mine, in hunger and thirst, poverty and 
sickness, for twelve or thirteen years. Some people believed 
he had found it, but most people believed he had not. I saw 
a piece of cement as large as my fist which was said to have 
been given to Whiteman by the young German, and it was of 
a seductive nature. Lumps of virgin gold were as thick in it 
as raisins in a slice of fruit cake. The privilege of working 
such a mine one week would be sufficient for a man of reason- 
able desires. 

A new partner of ours, a Mr. Higbie, knew Whiteman well 
by sight, and a friend of ours, a Mr. Van Dorn, was well ac- 
quainted with him, and not only that, but had Whiteman's 
promise that he should have a private hint in time to enable 
him to join the next cement expedition. Yan Dorn had prom- 
ised to extend the hint to us. One evening Higbie came in 
greatly excited, and said he felt certain he had recognized 
Whiteman, up town, disguised and in a pretended state of in- 
toxication. In a little while Yan Dorn arrived and confirmed 
the news ; and so we gathered in our cabin and with heads 
close together arranged our plans in impressive whispers. 

We were to leave town quietly, after midnight, in two 
or three small parties, so as not to attract attention, and 
meet at dawn on the " divide " overlooking Mono Lake, eight 
or nine miles distant. We were to make no noise after start- 
ing, and not speak above a whisper under any circumstances. 
It was believed that for once Whiteman's presence was un- 
known in the town and his expedition unsuspected. Our 
conclave broke up at nine o'clock, and we set about our 
preparations diligently and with profound secrecy. At eleven 
o'clock we saddled our horses, hitched them with their long 
riatas (or lassos), and then brought out a side of bacon, a sack 
of beans, a small sack of coffee, some sugar, a hundred pounds 
of flour in sacks, some tin cups and a coffee pot, frying pan 
and some few other necessary articles. All these things were 
" packed " on the back of a led horse — and whoever has not been 



262 A NOCTURNAL ADVENTURE. 

taught, by a Spanish adept, to pack an animal, let him never 
hope to do the thing by natural smartness. That is impossible. 
Higbie had had some experience, but was not perfect. He 
put on the pack saddle (a thing like a saw-buck), piled the 
property on it and then wound a rope all over and about it 
and under it, " every which way," taking a hitch in it every 
now and then, and occasionally surging back on it till the 
horse's sides sunk in and he gasped for breath — but every time 
the lashings grew tight in one place they loosened in another. 
We never did get the load tight all over, but we got it so that 
it would do, after a fashion, and then we started, in single file, 
close order, and without a word. It was a dark night. We 
kept the middle of the road, and proceeded in a slow walk 
past the rows of cabins, and whenever a miner came to his 
door I trembled for fear the light would shine on us and ex- 
cite curiosity. But nothing happened. We began the long 
winding ascent of the canyon, toward the " divide," and pres- 
ently the cabins began to grow infrequent, and the intervals 
between them wider and wider, and then I began to breathe 
tolerably freely and feel less like a thief and a murderer. I 
was in the rear, leading the pack horse. As the ascent grew 
steeper he grew proportionately less satisfied with his cargo, 
and began to pull back on his riata occasionally and delay 
progress. My comrades were passing out of sight in the 
gloom. I was getting anxious. I coaxed and bullied the 
pack horse till I presently got him into a trot, and then the 
tin cups and pans strung about his person frightened him and 
he ran. His riata was wound around the pummel of my 
saddle, and so, as he went by he dragged me from my horse 
and the two animals traveled briskly on without me. But I 
was not alone — the loosened cargo tumbled overboard from 
the pack horse and fell close to me. It was abreast of almost 
the last cabin. A miner came out and said : 

"Hello!" 

I was thirty steps from him, and knew he could not see 
me, it was so very dark in the shadow of the mountain. So I 
lay still. Another head appeared in the light of the cabin 



IN A DISTKESSED POSITION. 263 

door, and presently the two men walked toward me. They 
stepped within ten steps of me, and one said : 
"'St! Listen." 




ON A SECRET EXPEDITION. 



I could not have been in a more distressed state if I had 
been escaping justice with a price on my head. Then the 
miners appeared to sit down on a boulder, though I could not 
set? them distinctly enough to be very sure what they did. 
Oie said : 

" I heard a noise, as plain as I ever heard anything. It 
seemed to be about there — " 

A stone whizzed by my head. I flattened myself out in 
the dust like a postage stamp, and thought to myself if he 
mended his aim ever so little he would probably hear another 
noise. In my heart, now, I execrated secret expeditions. I 
promised myself that this should be my last, though the Sierras 
were ribbed with cement veins. Then one of the men said : 

" I'll tell you what ! Welch knew what he was talking about 



26± A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 

when be said he saw Whiteman to-day. I heard horses — that 
was the noise. I am going down to "Welch's, right away." 

They left and I was glad. I did not care whither they 
went, so they went. I was willing they should visit Welch, 
and the sooner the better. 

As soon as they closed their cabin door my comrades 
emerged from the gloom ; they had caught the horses and were 
waiting for a clear coast again. We remounted the cargo on 
the pack horse and got under way, and as day broke we 
reached the " divide " and joined Yan Dorn. Then we jour- 
neyed down into the valley of the Lake, and feeling secure, 
we halted to cook breakfast, for we were tired and sleepy and 
hungry. Three hours later the rest of the population filed over 
the " divide " in a long procession, and drifted off out of sight 
around the borders of the Lake ! 

Whether or not my accident had produced this result we 
never knew, but at least one thing was certain — the secret was 
out and Whiteman would not enter upon a search for the 
cement mine this time. We were filled with chagrin. 

We held a council and decided to make the best of our 
misfortune and enjoy a week's holiday on the borders of the 
curious Lake. Mono, it is sometimes called, and sometimes 
the " Dead Sea of California." It is one of the strangest freaks 
of Nature to be found in any land, but it is hardly ever men- 
tioned in print and very seldom visited, because it lies away 
off the usual routes of travel and besides is so difficult to get 
at that only men content to endure the roughest life will con- 
sent to take upon themselves the discomforts of such a trip. 
On the morning of our second day, we traveled around to a 
remote and particularly wild spot on the borders of the Lake, 
where a stream of fresh, ice-cold water entered it from the 
mountain side, and then we went regularly into camp. We 
hired a large boat and two shot-guns from a lonely ranchman 
who lived some ten miles further on, and made ready for com- 
fort and recreation. We soon got thoroughly acquainted with 
the Lake and all its peculiarities. 



CHAPTEE XXXVIII. 

MONO LAKE lies in a lifeless, treeless, hideous desert, 
eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, and is 
guarded by mountains two thousand feet higher, whose sum- 
mits are always clothed in clouds. This solemn, silent, sailless 
sea — this lonely tenant of the loneliest spot on earth — is little 
graced with the picturesque. It. is an unpretending expanse 
of grayish water, about a hundred miles in circumference, 
with two islands in its centre, mere upheavals of rent and 
scorched and blistered lava, snowed over with gray banks and 
drifts of pumice-stone and ashes, the winding sheet of the 
dead volcano, whose vast crater the lake has seized upon and 
occupied. 

The lake is two hundred feet deep, and its sluggish waters 
are so strong with alkali that if you only dip the most hope- 
lessly soiled garment into them once or twice, and wring it out, 
it will be found as clean as if it had been through the ablest 
of washerwomen's hands. "While we camped there our laundry 
work was easy. We tied the week's washing astern of our 
boat, and sailed a quarter of a mile, and the job was complete, 
all to the wringing out. If we threw the water on our heads 
and gave them a rub or so, the white lather would pile up three 
inches high. This water is not good for bruised places and 
abrasions of the skin. We had a valuable dog. He had raw 
places on him. He had more raw places on him than sound 
ones. He was the rawest dog I almost ever saw. He jumped 
overboard one day to get away from the flies. But it was bad 



266 



VERY HARD ON OUR DOG. 



judgment. In his condition, it would have been just as com- 
fortable to jump into the fire. The alkali water nipped him 

in all the raw places 
simultaneously, and 
he struck out for the 
shore with consider- 
able interest. He 
yelped and barked 
and howled as he 
went — and by the 
time he got to the 
shore there was no 
bark to him — for he 
had barked the bark 
all out of his inside, 
and the alkali water 
had cleaned the bark 

RATHER SOAPY. ,, ™ , . J . , 

all on his outside, 
and he probably wished he had never embarked in any such 
enterprise. He ran round and round in a circle, and pawed 





A BARK UNDER FULL SAIL. 



the earth and clawed the air, and threw double somersaults, 
sometimes backward and sometimes forward, in the most 



NATURE'S WONDERFUL PROVISIONS. 267 

extraordinary manner. He was not a demonstrative dog, as 
a general thing, but rather of a grave and serious turn of 
mind, and I never saw him take so much interest in anything 
before. He finally struck out over the mountains, at a gait 
which we estimated at about two hundred and fifty miles an 
hour, and he is going yet. This was about nine years ago. 
We look for what is left of him along here every day. 

A white man cannot drink the water of Mono Lake, for it 
is nearly pure lye. It is said that the Indians in the vicinity 
drink it sometimes, though. It is not improbable, for they 
are among the purest liars I ever saw. [There will be no ad- 
ditional charge for this joke, except to parties requiring an 
explanation of it. This joke has received high commendation 
from some of the ablest minds of the age.] 

There are no fish in Mono Lake — no frogs, no snakes, no 
polliwigs — nothing, in fact, that goes to make life desirable. 
Millions of wild ducks and sea-gulls swim about the surface, 
but no living thing exists under the surface, except a white 
feathery sort of worm, one half an inch long, which looks like 
a bit of white thread frayed out at the sides. If you dip up a 
gallon of water, you will get about fifteen thousand of these. 
They give to the water a sort of grayish-white appearance. 
Then there is a fly, which looks something like our house fly. 
These settle on the beach to eat the worms that wash ashore 
— and any time, you can see there a belt of flies an inch deep 
and six feet wide, and this belt extends clear around the lake 
— a belt of flies one hundred miles long. If you throw a stone 
among them, they swarm up so thick that they look dense, like 
a cloud. You can hold them under water as long as you please 
— they do not mind it — they are only proud of it. When you 
let them go, they pop up to the surface as dry as a patent office 
report, and walk off as unconcernedly as if they had been 
educated especially with a view to affording instructive enter- 
tainment to man in that particular way. Providence leaves 
nothing to go by chance. All things have their uses and their 
part and proper place in Nature's economy : the ducks eat the 
flies — the flies eat the worms — the Indians eat all three — the 



26S 



A FREE HOTEL BUT NO CLERK. 



wild cats eat the Indians — the white folks eat the wild cats-~ 
and thus all things are lovely. 

Mono Lake is a hundred miles in a straight line from the 
ocean — and between it and the ocean are one or two ranges 
of mountains — yet thousands of sea-gulls go there every season 
to lay their eggs and rear their young. One would as soon 
expect to find sea-gulls in Kansas. And in this connection let 
us observe another instance of Nature's wisdom. The islands 
in the lake being merely huge masses of lava, coated over with 
ashes and pumice-stone, and utterly innocent of vegetation or 
anything that would burn ; and sea-gulls' eggs being entirely 
useless to anybody unless they be cooked, Nature has provided 
an unfailing spring of boiling water on the largest island, and 
you can put your eggs in there, and in four minutes you can 
boil them as hard as any statement I have made during the past 
fifteen years. Within ten feet of the boiling spring is a spring 
of pure cold water, sweet and wholesome. So, in that island 




A MODEL BOARDING-HOUSE. 

you get your board and washing free of charge — and if nature 
had gone further and furnished a nice American hotel clerk 
who was crusty and disobliging, and didn't know anything 
about the time tables, or the railroad routes — or — anything — 
and was proud of it — I would not wish for a more desirable 
boarding-house. 

Half a dozen little mountain brooks flow into Mono 
Lake, but not a stream of any hind flows out of it. It neither 



FUNNY INCIDENTS, BUT A LITTLE OVERDRAWN. 269 

rises nor falls, apparently, and what it does with its surplus 
water is a dark and bloody mystery. 

There are only two seasons in the region round about 
Mono Lake — and these are, the breaking up of one Winter 
and the beginning of the next. More than once (in Esme- 
ralda) I have seen a perfectly blistering morning open up with 
the thermometer at ninety degrees at eight o'clock, and seen 
the snow fall fourteen inches deep and that same identical 
thermometer go down to forty-four degrees under shelter, 
before nine o'clock at night. Under favorable circumstances 
it snows at least once in every single month in the year, in the 
little town of Mono. So uncertain is the climate in Summer 
that a lady who goes our visiting cannot hope to be prepared 
for all emergencies uniess she takes her fan under one arm and 
her snow shoes under tne other. When they have a Fourth 
of July processiou it generally snows on them, and they do say 
that as a general thing when a man calls for a brandy toddy 
there, the bar keeper chops it off with a hatchet and wraps it 
up in a paper, like maple sugar. And it is further reported 
that the old soakers haven't any teeth — wore them out eating 
gin cocktails and brandy punches. I do not endorse that state- 
ment — I simply give it for what it is worth — and it is worth — 
well, I should say, millions, to any man who can believe it 
without straining himself. But I do endorse the snow on the 
Fourth of July — because I know that to be true. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

ABOUT seven o'clock one blistering hot morning — for it 
was now dead summer time — Higbie and I took the 
boat and started on a voyage of discovery to the two islands. 
"We had often longed to do this, bnt had been deterred by the 
fear of storms ; for they were frequent, and severe enough to 
capsize an ordinary row-boat like ours without great difficulty 
— and once capsized, death would ensue in spite of the bravest 
swimming, for that venomous water would eat a man's eyes 
out like fire, and burn him out inside, too, if he shipped a sea. 
It was called twelve miles, straight out to the islands — a long 
pull and a warm one — but the morning was so quiet and sunny, 
and the lake so smooth and glassy and dead, that we could not 
resist the temptation. So we filled two large tin canteens 
with water (since we were not acquainted with the locality of 
the spring said to exist on the large island), and started. 
Higbie's brawny muscles gave the boat good speed, but by the 
time we reached our destination we judged that we had pulled 
nearer fifteen miles than twelve. 

We landed on the big island and went ashore. We tried 
the water in the canteens, now, and found that the sun had 
spoiled it ; it was so brackish that we could not drink it ; so 
we poured it out and began a search for the spring — for thirst 
augments fast as soon as it is apparent that one has no means 
at hand of quenching it. The island was a long, moderately 
high hill of ashes — nothing but gray ashes and pumice-stone, 
in which we sunk to our knees at every step — and all around 



AN EXCURSION ON THE ISLAND. 



271 



the top was a forbidding wall of scorched and blasted rocks. 
When we reached the top and got within the wall, we found 
simply a shallow, far-reaching basin, carpeted with ashes, and 
here and there a patch of fine sand. In places, picturesque 
jets of steam shot up out of crevices, giving evidence that 
although this ancient crater had gone out of active business, 
there was still some fire left in its furnaces. Close to one of 
these jets of steam stood the only tree on the island — a small 
pine of most graceful shape and most faultless symmetry ; its 
color was a brilliant green, for the steam drifted unceasingly 
through its branches and kept them always moist. It con- 
trasted strangely enough, did this vigorous and beautiful outcast, 
with its dead and dismal surroundings. It was like a cheerful 
spirit in a mourn- 
ing household. 

We hunted for 
the spring every- 
where, traversing 
the full length of 
the island (two or 
three miles), and 
crossing it twice — 
climbing ash-hills 
patiently, and then 
sliding down the 
other side in a 
sitting posture, 
plowing up smoth- 
ering volumes of 
gray dust. But we 
found nothing but 
solitude, ashes and 
a heart - breaking 
silence. Finally we noticed that the wind had risen, and wo 
forgot our thirst in a solicitude of greater importance ; for, 
the lake being quiet, we had not taken pains about secur- 
ing the boat. We hurried back to a point overlooking our 




LIFE AMID DEATH. 



272 OUR BOAT ADRIFT ON THE LAKE. 

landing place, and then — bnt mere words cannot describe 
our dismay — the boat was gone ! The chances were that 
there was not another boat on the entire lake. The situa- 
tion was not comfortable — in truth, to speak plainly, it was 
frightful. We were prisoners on a desolate island, in aggra- 
vating proximity to friends who were for the present help- 
less to aid us ; and what was still more uncomfortable was 
the reflection that we had neither food nor water. But pres- 
ently we sighted the boat. It was drifting along, leisurely, 
about fifty yards from shore, tossing in a foamy sea. It 
drifted, and continued to drift, but at the same safe dis- 
tance from land, and we walked along abreast it and waited 
for fortune to favor us. At the end of an hour it approached 
a jutting cape, and Higbie ran ahead and posted himself 
on the utmost verge and prepared for the assault. If we 
failed there, there was no hope for us. It was driving gradu- 
ally shoreward all the time, now ; but whether it was driving 
fast enough to make the connection or not was the momen- 
tous question. When it got within thirty steps of Higbie 
I was so excited that I fancied I could hear my own heart 
beat. When, a little later, it dragged slowly along and 
seemed about to go by, only one little yard out of reach, it 
seemed as if my heart stood still ; and when it was exactly 
abreast him and began to widen away, and he still standing 
like a watching statue, I knew my heart did stop. But when 
he gave a great spring, the next instant, and lit fairly in the 
stern, I discharged a war-whoop that woke the solitudes ! 

But it dulled my enthusiasm, presently, when he told me 
he had not been caring whether the boat came within jumping 
distance or not, so that it passed within eight or ten yards of 
him, for he had made up his mind to shut his eyes and mouth 
and swim that trifling distance. Imbecile that I was, I had not 
thought of that. It was only a long swim that could be fatal. 

The sea was running high and the storm increasing. It 
was growing late, too — three or four in the afternoon. 
Whether to venture toward the mainland or not, was a ques- 
tion of some moment. But we were so distressed by thirst 



BILLOWS OF SOAP SUDS 



273 



that we decided to try it, and so Higbie fell to work and I 
took the steering-oar. When we had pulled a mile, laboriously, 
we were evidently in serious peril, for the storm had greatly 




A JUMP i'OK LIFE. 



augmented ; the billows ran very high and were capped with 
foaming crests, the heavens were hung with black, and the 
wind blew with great fury. We would have gone back, now, 
but we did not dare to turn the boat around, because as soon 
as she got in the trough of the sea she would upset, of course. 
Our only hope lay in keeping her head-on to the seas. It was 
hard work to do this, she plunged so, and so beat and belabored 
the billows with her rising and falling bows. Now and then 
one of Higbie's oars would trip on the top of a wave, and the 
other one would snatch the boat half around in spite of my 
cumbersome steering apparatus. We were drenched by the 
sprays constantly, and the boat occasionally shipped water. 
By and by, powerful as my comrade was, his great exertions 
began to tell on him, and he was anxious that I should change 
places with him till he could rest a little. But I told him 
this was impossible ; for if the steering oar were dropped a 
18f 



274 A NUT FOR GEOLOGISTS. 

moment while we changed, the boat would slue around into 
the trough of the sea, capsize, and in less than five minutes we 
would have a hundred gallons of soap-suds in us and be eaten 
up so quickly that we could not even be present at our own 
inquest. 

But things cannot last always. Just as the darkness shut 
down we came booming into port, head on. Higbie dropped 
his oars to hurrah — I dropped mine to help — the sea gave the 
boat a twist, and over she went ! 

The agony that alkali water inflicts on bruises, chafes and 
blistered hands, is unspeakable, and nothing but greasing all 
over will modify it — but we. ate, drank and slept well, that 
night, notwithstanding. 

In speaking of the peculiarities of Mono Lake, I ought to 
have mentioned that at intervals all around its shores stand 
picturesque turret-looking masses and clusters of a whitish, 
coarse-grained rock that resembles inferior mortar dried hard ; 
and if one breaks off fragments of this rock he will find 
perfectly shaped and thoroughly petrified gulls' eggs deeply 
imbedded in the mass. How did they get there ? I simply 
state the fact — for it is a fact — and leave the geological reader 
to crack the nut at his leisure and solve the problem after his 
own fashion. 

At the end of a week we adjourned to the Sierras on a 
fishing excursion, and spent several days in camp under snowy 
Castle Peak, and fished successfully for trout in a bright, 
miniature lake whose surface was between ten and eleven 
thousand feet above the level of the sea; cooling ourselves 
during the hot August noons by sitting on snow banks ten feet 
deep, under whose sheltering edges fine grass and dainty 
flowers flourished luxuriously ; and at night entertaining 
ourselves by almost freezing to death. Then we returned to 
Mono Lake, and finding that the cement excitement was over 
for the present, packed up and went back to Esmeralda. Mr. 
Ballou reconnoitred awhile, and not liking the prospect, set 
>ut alone for Humboldt. 

About this time occurred a little incident which has always 



UNLOOKED FOR EXPLOSION. 



275 



had a sort of interest to me, from the fact that it came so near 
" instigating " my funeral. At a time when an Indian attack 
had been expected, the citizens hid their gunpowder where it 
would be safe and yet convenient to hand when wanted. A 
neighbor of ours hid six cans of rifle powder in the bake-oven 
of an old discarded cooking stove which stood on the open 
ground near a frame out-house or shed, and from and after 
that day never thought of it again. "We hired a half-tamed 
Indian to do some washing for us, and he t^ok up quarters 
under the shed with his tub. The ancient stove reposed with- 
in six feet of him, and before his face. Finally it occurred to 
him that hot water would be better than cold, and he went 
out and fired up under that forgotten powder magazine and 
set on a kettle of water. Then he returned to his tub. I 




STOVE HEAP GONE. 



entered the shed presently and threw down some more clothes, 
and was about to speak to him when the stove blew up with a 
prodigious crash, and disappeared, leaving not a splinter be- 
hind. Fragments of it fell in the streets full two hundred 
yards away. Nearly a third of the shed roof over our heads 



276 AN INDIAN'S WORDS FEW BUT EXPRESSIVE. 

was destroyed, and one of the stove lids, after cutting a small 
stanchion half in two in front of the Indian, whizzed between 
us and drove partly through the weather-boarding beyond. I 
was as white as a sheet and as weak as a kitten and speechless. 
But the Indian betrayed no trepidation, no distress, not even 
discomfort. He simply stopped washing, leaned forward and 
surveyed the clean, blank ground a moment, and then re- 
marked : 

" Mph ! Dam stove heap gone ! " — and resumed his scrub- 
bing as placidly as if it were an entirely customary thing for a 
stove to do. I will explain, that " heap " is " Injun-English " 
for " very much." The reader will perceive the exhaustive 
expressiveness of it in the present instance. 




CHAPTEB XL. 

I NOW come to a curious episode — the most curious, I 
think, that had yet accented my slothful, valueless, heed- 
less career. Out of a hillside toward the upper end of the 
town, projected a wall of reddish looking quartz-croppings, the 
exposed comb of a silver-bearing ledge that extended deep 
down into the earth, of course. It was owned by a company 
entitled the " Wide West." There was a shaft sixty or seventy 
feet deep on the under side of the croppings, and everybody 
was acquainted with the rock that came from it — and tolerably 
rich rock it was, too, but nothing extraordinary. I will remark 
here, that although to the inexperienced stranger all the quartz 
of a particular " district " looks about alike, an old resident of 
the camp can take a glance at a mixed pile of rock, separate 
the fragments and tell you which mine each came from, as 
easily as a confectioner can separate and classify the various 
kinds and qualities of candy in a mixed heap of the article. 

All at once the town was thrown into a state of extraor- 
dinary excitement. In mining parlance the Wide West had 
" struck it rich ! " Everybody went to see the new developments, 
and for some days there was such a crowd of people about the 
Wide West shaft that a stranger would have supposed there 
was a mass meeting in session there. No other topic was 
discussed but the rich strike, and nobody thought or dreamed 
about anything else. Every man brought away a specimen, 
ground it up in a hand mortar, washed it out in his horn 
spoon, and glared speechless upon the marvelous result. It 



27S THE "WIDE WEST" SILVER LEDGE. 

was not hard rock, but black, decomposed stuff which could 
be crumbled in the hand like a baked potato, and when spread 
out on a paper exhibited a thick sprinkling of gold and par- 
ticles of "native" silver. Higbie brought a handful to the 
cabin, and when he had washed it out his amazement was 
beyond description. Wide West stock soared skywards. It 
was said that repeated offers had been made for it at a thou- 
sand dollars a foot, and promptly refused. We have all had 
the " blues " — the mere sky-blues — but mine were indigo, now 
— because I did not own in the Wide West. The world 
seemed hollow to me, and existence a grief. I lost my appe- 
tite, and ceased to take an interest in anything. Still I had 
to stay, and listen to other people's rejoicings, because I had 
no money to get out of the camp with. 

The Wide West company put a stop to the carrying away 
of " specimens," and well they might, for every handful of the 
ore was worth a sum of some consequence. To show the 
exceeding value of the ore, I will remark that a sixteen-hun- 
dred-pounds parcel of it was sold, just as it lay, at the mouth 
of the shaft, at one dollar a pound / and the man who bought 
it " packed " it on mules a hundred and fifty or two hundred 
miles, over the mountains, to San Francisco, satisfied that it 
would yield at a rate that would richly compensate him for his 
trouble. The Wide West people also commanded their foreman 
to refuse any but their own operatives permission to enter the 
mine at any time or for any purpose. I kept up my " blue " 
meditations and Higbie kept up a deal of thinking, too, but 
of a different sort. He puzzled over the " rock," examined it 
with a glass, inspected it in different lights and from different 
points of view, and after each experiment delivered himself, in 
soliloquy, of one and the same unvarying opinion in the same 
unvarying formula : 

" It is not Wide West rock ! " 

He said once or twice that he meant to have a look into the 
Wide West shaft if he got shot for it. I was wretched, and 
did not care whether he got a look into it or not. He failed 
that day, and tried again at night ; failed again ; got up at 



HIGBIE "INTERVIEWS" THE MINE, 



279 



dawn and tried, and failed again. Then he lay in ambush in 
the sage brush hour after hour, waiting for the two or three 
hands to adjourn to the shade of a boulder for dinner ; made 
a start once, but was premature — one of the men came bads 
for something ; tried it again, but when almost at the mouth 
of the shaft, another of the men rose up from behind the boul 
der as if to reconnoitre, and he dropped on the ground and lay 
quiet; presently he crawled on his hands and knees to the 
mouth of the shaft, gave a quick glance around, then seized 
the rope and slid down 
the shaft. He disap- 
peared in the gloom of 
a " side drift " just as a 
head appeared in the 
mouth of the shaft and 
somebody shouted 
"Hello!"— which he 
did not answer. He was 
not disturbed any more. 
An hour later he en- 
tered the cabin, hot, red, 
and ready to burst with 
smothered excitement, 
and exclaimed in a stage whis 
per: 

" I knew it ! We are 
rich ! It's a blind lead ! " 

I thought the very earth 
reeled under me. Doubt — 
conviction — doubt again- 
ultation — hope, amazement, 
belief, unbelief — every emo- 
tion imaginable swept in wild procession through my heart 
and brain, and I could not speak a word. After a moment 
or two of this mental fury, I shook myself to rights, and 
said: 

" Say it again ! " 




INTERVIEWING THE "WIDE WEST. 



280 



BLIND LEAD" DISCOVERED. 



"It's a blind lead!" 

" Cal., let's — let's burn the house — or kill somebody ! Let's 
get out where there's room to hurrah ! But what is the use? 
It is a hundred times too good to be true." 

" It's a blind lead, for a million ! — hanging wall — foot wall 
— clay casings — everything complete ! " He swung his hat and 
gave three cheers, and I cast dpubt to the winds and chimed 
in with a will. For I was worth a million dollars, and did 
not care " whether school kept or not ! " 

But perhaps I ought to explain. A "blind lead" is a 

lead or ledge that 
does not " crop out " 
above the surface. A 
miner does not know 
where to look for 
such leads, but they 
are often stumbled 
upon by accident in 
the course of driving 
a tunnel or sinking a 
shaft. Higbie knew 
the Wide West rock 
perfectly well, and 
the more he had ex- 
amined the new de- 
velopments the more 
he was satisfied that 
the ore could not 
have come from the 
Wide West vein. 
And so had it occurred to him alone, of all the camp, that 
there was a blind lead down in the shaft, and that even the 
Wide West people themselves did not suspect it. He was 
right. When he went down the shaft, he found that the 
blind lead held its independent way through the Wide West 
vein, cutting it diagonally, and that it was enclosed in its own 
well-defined casing-rocks and clay. Hence it was public prop- 




WORTH A MILLION. 



"UP IN A BALLOON."— RICH AT LAST. 281 

erty. Both leads being perfectly well defined, it was easy for 
any miner to see which one belonged to the Wide West and 
which did not. 

We thought it well to have a strong friend, and therefore 
we brought the foreman of the Wide West to our cabin that 
night and revealed the great surprise to him. Higbie said : 

" We are going to take possession of this blind lead, record 
it and establish ownership, and then forbid the Wide West 
company to take out any more of the rock. You cannot help 
your company in this matter — nobody can help them. I will 
go into the shaft with you and prove to your entire satisfaction 
that it is a blind lead. Now we propose to take you in with 
us, and claim the blind lead in our three names. What do 
you say ? " 

What could a man say who had an opportunity to simply 
stretch forth his hand and take possession of a fortune without 
risk of any kind and without wronging any one or attaching 
the least taint of dishonor to his name ? He could only say, 
"Agreed." 

The notice was put up that night, and duly spread upon 
the recorder's books before ten o'clock. We claimed two hun- 
dred feet each — six hundred feet in all — the smallest and com- 
pactest organization in the district, and the easiest to manage. 

ISTo one can be so thoughtless as to suppose that we slept, that 
night. Higbie and I went to bed at midnight, but it was only 
to lie broad awake and think, dream, scheme. The floorless, 
tumble-down cabin was a palace, the ragged gray blankets silk, 
the furniture rosewood and mahogany. Each new splendor 
that burst out of my visions of the future whirled me bodily 
over in bed or jerked me to a sitting posture just as if an elec- 
tric battery had been applied to me. We shot fragments of 
conversation back and forth at each other. Once Higbie said : 

" When are you going home — to the States ? " 

" To-morrow ! " — with an evolution or two, ending with a 
sitting position. " Well — no — but next month, at furthest." 

" We'll go in the same steamer." 

" Agreed." 



HOW SHALL WE SPEND OUR MONEY? 

A pause. 

"Steamer of the 10th?" 

"Yes. No, the 1st." 

"AH right," 

Another pause. 

" Where are you going to live?" said Higbie. 

" San Francisco." 

" That's me ! " 

Pause. 

"Too high— too much climbing "—from Higbie 
"What is?" 

" I was thinking of Eussian Hill— building a house uo 
there." * 

" Too much climbing ? Shan't you keep a carriage ? " 
" Of course. I forgot that." 
Pause. 
" Cal., what kind of a house are you going to build ? " 




MILLIONAIRES LAYING PLANS. 



" I was thinking about that. Three-story and an attic." 

"But what kind?" 

" Well, I don't hardly know. Brick, I suppose." 



WE TIRE OF WEALTH — AND PLAY CRIBBAGE. 283 

"Brick—bosh." 

" Why ? What is your idea ? " 

" Brown stone front — French plate glass — billiard-room off 
the dining-room — statuary and paintings — shrubbery and two- 
acre grass plat — greenhouse — iron dog on the front stoop — 
gray horses — landau, and a coachman with a bug on his hat I " 

"By George!" 

A long pause. 

" Cal., when are you going to Europe ? " 

" Well— I hadn't thought of that. When are you ? " 

" In the Spring." 

" Going to be gone all summer ? " 

" All summer ! I shall remain there three years." 

" No — but are you in earnest ? " 

"Indeed I am." 

" I will go along too." 

" Why of course you will." 

" What part of Europe shall you go to ? " 

" All parts. France, England, Germany — Spain, Italy, 
Switzerland, Syria, Greece, Palestine, Arabia, Persia, Egypt — • 
all over — everywhere." 

" I'm agreed." 

" All right" 

"Won't it be a swell trip 1" 

" We'll spend forty or fifty thousand dollars trying to make 
it one, anyway." 

Another long pause. 

" Higbie, we owe the butcher six dollars, and he has been 
threatening to stop our — " 

" Hang the butcher ! " 

" Amen." 

And so it went on. By three o'clock we found it was no 
use, and so we got up and played cribbage and smoked pipes 
till sunrise. It was my week to cook. I always hated cook- 
ing — now, I abhorred it. 

The news was all over town. The former excitement was 
great — this one was greater still. I walked the streets serene 



2S4 DUTY BEFORE PLEASURE. 

and happy. Higbie said the foreman had been offered two 
hundred thousand dollars for his third of the mine. I said I 
would like to see myself selling for any such price. My ideas 
were lofty. My figure was a million. Still, I honestly believe 
that if I had been offered it, it would have had no other effect 
than to make me hold off for more. 

I found abundant enjoyment in being rich. A man offered 
me a three-hundred-dollar horse, and wanted to take my sim- 
ple, unendorsed note for it. That brought the most realizing 
sense I had yet had that I was actually rich, beyond shadow 
of doubt. It was followed by numerous other evidences of a 
similar nature — among which I may mention the fact of the 
butcher leaving us a double supply of meat and saying nothing 
about money. 

By the laws of the district, the " locators " or claimants of 
a ledge were obliged to do a fair and reasonable amount of 
work on their new property within ten days after the date of 
the location, or the property was forfeited, and anybody could 
go and seize it that chose. So we determined to go to work 
the next day. About the middle of the afternoon, as I was 
coming out of the post office, I met a Mr. Gardiner, who told 
me that Capt. John K ye was lying dangerously ill at his place 
(the " Nine-Mile Eanch "), and that he and his wife were not 
able to give him nearly as much care and attention as his case 
demanded. I said ii he would wait for me a moment, I would 
go down and help in the sick room. I ran to the cabin to tell 
Higbie. He was not there, but I left a note on the table for 
him, and a few minutes later I left town in Gardiner's wagon. 



OHAPTEE XLI. 

CAPTAIN NYE was very ill indeed, with spasmodic 
rheumatism. But the old gentleman was himself — 
which is to say, he was kind-hearted and agreeable when com- 
fortable, but a singularly violent wild-cat when things did not 
go well. He would be smiling along pleasantly enough, when 
a sudden spasm of his disease would take him and he would 
go out of his smile into a perfect fury. He would groan and 
wail and howl with the anguish, and fill up the odd chinks 
with the most elaborate profanity that strong convictions and 
a fine fancy could contrive. With fair opportunity he could 
swear very well and handle his adjectives with considerable 
judgment ; but when the spasm was on him it was painful to 
listen to him, he was so awkward. However, I had seen him 
nurse a sick man himself and put up patiently with the incon- 
veniences of the situation, and consequently I was willing that 
he should have full license now that his own turn had come. 
He could not disturb me, with all his raving and ranting, for 
my mind had work on hand, and it labored on diligently, 
night and day, whether my hands were idle or employed. I 
was altering and amending the plans for my house, and think- 
ing over the propriety of having the billiard-room in the attic, 
instead of on the same floor with the dining-room ; also, I was 
trying to decide between green and blue for the upholstery of 
the drawing-room, for, although my preference was blue I 
feared it was a color that would be too easily damaged by dust 
and sunlight ; likewise while I was content to put the coach- 



2SC DAY DREAM OF A MILLIONAIRE 

man in a modest livery, I was uncertain about a footman — I 
needed one, and was even resolved to have one, but wished he 
could properly appear and perform his functions out of livery, 
for I somewhat dreaded so much show ; and yet, inasmuch as 
my late grandfather had had a coachman and such things, but 
no liveries, I felt rather drawn to beat him ; — or beat his ghost^ 
at any rate ; I was also systematizing the European trip, and 
managed to get it all laid out, as to route and length of time 
to be devoted to it — everything, with one exception — namely, 
whether to cross the desert from Cairo to Jerusalem per camel, 
or go by sea to Beirut, and thence down through the country 
per caravan. Meantime I was writing to the friends at home 
every day, instructing them concerning all my plans and in- 
tentions, and directing them to look up a handsome homestead 
for my mother and agree upon a price for it against my com- 
ing, and also directing them to sell my share of the Tennessee 
land and tender the proceeds to the widows' and orphans' 
fund of the typographical union of which I had long been a 
member in good standing. [This Tennessee land had been in 
the possession of the family many years, and promised to con- 
fer high fortune upon us some day ; it still promises it, but in 
a less violent way.] 

"When I had been nursing the Captain nine days he was 
somewhat better, but very feeble. During the afternoon we 
lifted him into a chair and gave him an alcoholic vapor bath, 
and then set about putting him on the bed again. We had 
to be exceedingly careful, for the least jar produced pain. 
Gardiner had his shoulders and I his legs ; in an unfortunate 
moment I stumbled and the patient fell heavily on the bed in 
an agony of torture. I never heard a man swear so in my life. 
He raved like a maniac, and tried to snatch a revolver from 
the table — but I got it. He ordered me out of the house, and 
swore a world of oaths that he would kill me wherever he 
caught me when he got on his feet again. It was simply a 
passing fury, and meant nothing. I knew he would forget it in 
an hour, and maybe be sorry for it, too ; but it angered me a 
little, at the moment. So much so, indeed, that I determined 



A FIT SUBJECT FOR SYMPATHY. 



287 



to go back to Esmeralda. I thought lie was able to get along 
alone, now, since lie was on the war path. I took supper, and 
as soon as the moon rose, began my nine-mile journey, on foot. 




DANGEROUSLY SICK. 



Even millionaires needed no horses, in those days, for a mere 
nine-mile jaunt without baggage. 

As I "raised the hill" overlooking the town, it lacked 
fifteen minutes of twelve. I glanced at the hill over beyond 
the canyon, and in the bright moonlight saw what appeared 
to be about half the population of the village massed on and 
around the Wide West croppings. My heart gave an exulting 
bound, and I said to myself, " They have made a new strike 
to-night — and struck it richer than ever, no doubt." I started 
over there, but gave it up. I said the " strike " would keep, 
and I had climbed hills enough for one night. I went on 
down through the town, and as I was passing a little German 
bakery, a woman ran out and begged me to come in and help 
her. She said her husband had a fit. I went in, and judged 
she was right — he appeared to have a hundred of them, com- 
pressed into one. Two Germans were there, trying to hold 
him, and not making much of a success of it. I ran up the 



OUR BALLOON BURSTS. 



street half a block or so and routed out a sleeping doctor, 
brought him down half dressed, and we four wrestled with 
the maniac, and doctored, drenched and bled him, for more 
than an hour, and the poor German woman did the crying. 
He grew quiet, now, and the doctor and I withdrew and left 
him to his friends. 

It was a little after one o'clock. As. I entered the cabin 
door, tired but jolly, the dingy light of a tallow candle revealed 
Higbie, sitting by the pine table gazing stupidly at my note, 
which he held in his fingers, and looking pale, old, and hag- 
gard. I halted, and 
looked at him. He 
looked at me, stol- 
idly. I said : 

"Higbie, what — 
what is it?" 

"We're ruined — 
we didn't do the 

WOrk THE BLIND 

LEAD'S RELOCATED ! " 

It was enough. I 
sat down sick, 
grieved — broken- 
hearted, indeed. A 
minute before, I was 
rich and brimful of 
vanity ; I was a pau- 
per now, and very 
meek. We sat still 
an hour, busy with 
thought, busy with vain and useless self-upbraidings, busy with 
" Why didn't I do this, and why didnH I do that," but neither 
spoke a word. Then we dropped into mutual explanations, and 
the mystery was cleared away. It came out that Higbie had 
depended on me, as I had on him, and as both of us had on 
the foreman. The folly of it ! It was the first time that ever 
staid and steadfast Higbie had left an important matter to 
chance or failed to be true to his full share of a responsibility. 




"VVOKTH NOTHING. 



UNAVAILABLE REGRETS AND EXPLANATIONS. 289 

But he had never seen my note till this moment, and this 
moment was the first time he had been in the cabin 
since the day he had seen me last. He, also, had left a note 
for me, on that same fatal afternoon — had ridden up on horse- 
back, and looked through the window, and being in a hurry 
and not seeing me, had tossed the note into the cabin through 
a broken pane. Here it was, on the floor, where it had re- 
mained undisturbed for nine days : 

" Don't fail to do the work before the ten days expire. W. has passed 
through and given me notice. I am to join him at Mono Lake, and we shall 
go on from there to-night. He says he will find it this time, sure. Cal." 

"W." meant Whiteman, of course. That thrice accursed 
" cement ! " 

That was the way of it. An old miner, like Higbie, could 
no more withstand the fascination of a mysterious mining 
excitement like this "cement" foolishness, than he could re- 
frain from eating when he was famishing. Higbie had been 
dreaming about the marvelous cement for months ; and now, 
against his better judgment; he had gone off and " taken the 
chances " on my keeping secure a mine worth a million undis- 
covered cement veins. They had not been followed this time. 
His riding out of town in broad daylight was such a common- 
place thing to do that it had not attracted any attention. He 
said they prosecuted their search in the fastnesses of the 
mountains during nine days, without success ; they could not 
find the cement. Then a ghastly fear came over him that 
something might have happened to prevent the doing of the 
necessary work to hold the blind lead (though indeed he 
thought such a thing hardly possible), and forthwith he started 
home with all speed. He would have reached Esmeralda in 
time, but his horse broke down and he had to walk a great 
part of the distance. And so it happened that as he came 
into Esmeralda by one road, I entered it by another. His 
was the superior energy, however, for he went straight to the 
Wide West, instead of turning aside as I had done — and he 
arrived there about five or ten minutes too late ! The " notice " 
19f 



290 



Till: THIRD PARTNER PLAYS TO WIN. 



was already up, the "relocation" of our mine completed be- 
yond recall, and the crowd rapidly dispersing. He learned 
some facts before he left the ground. The foreman had not 
been seen about the streets since the night we had located the 
mine — a telegram had called him to California on a matter of 
life and death, it was said. At any rate he had done no work 
and the watchful eyes of the community were taking note of 
the fact. At midnight of this woful tenth day, the ledge 
would be "relocatable," and by eleven o'clock the hill was 
black with men prepared to do the relocating. That was the 
crowd I had seen when I fancied a new " strike " had been 




made — idiot that I was. 
[We three had the same 
right to relocate the lead 
that other people had, 
provided we were quick 
enough.] As midnight 
was announced, fourteen 
men, duly armed and ready 
to back their proceedings, 
put up their "notice" and proclaimed their ownership of the 
blind lead, under the new name of the " Johnson." But A. 
D. Allen our partner (the foreman) put in a sudden appearance 
about that time, with a cocked revolver in his hand, and said 
his name must be added to the list, or he would " thin out the 
Johnson company some." He was a manly, splendid, de- 



ENFORCING A COMPROMISE. 



THE THREE MILLIONAIRES. 291 

termined fellow, and known to be as good as his word, and 
therefore a compromise was effected. They put in his name 
for a hundred feet, reserving to themselves the customary two 
hundred feet each. Such was the history of the night's 
events, as Higbie gathered from a friend on the way home. 

Higbie and I cleared out on a new mining excitement the 
next morning, glad to get away from the scene of our suffer 
ings, and after a month or two of hardship and disappoint* 
ment, returned to Esmeralda once more. Then we learned 
that the Wide West and the Johnson companies had consoli- 
dated ; that the stock, thus united, comprised five thousand 
feet, or shares ; that the foreman, apprehending tiresome liti- 
gation, and considering such a huge concern unwieldy, had 
sold his hundred feet for ninety thousand dollars in gold and 
gone home to the States to enjoy it. If the stock was worth 
such a gallant figure, with Hive thousand shares in the corpora- 
tion, it makes me dizzy to think what it would have been 
worth with only our original six hundred in it. It was the 
difference between six hundred men owning a house and five 
thousand owning it. We would have been millionaires if we 
had only worked with pick and spade one little day on our 
property and so secured our ownership ! 

It reads like a wild fancy sketch, but the evidence of many 
witnesses, and likewise that of the official records of Esmeralda 
District, is easily obtainable in proof that it is a true history. 
I can always have it to say that I was absolutely and unquT 
tionably worth a million dollars, once, for ten days. 

A year ago my esteemed and in every way estimable olu 
millionaire partner, Higbie, wrote me from an obscure little 
mining camp in California that after nine or ten years of buf- 
fetings and hard striving, he was at last in a position where 
he could command twenty-five hundred dollars, and said he 
meant to go into the fruit business in a modest way. How 
such a thought would have insulted him the night we lay in 
our cabin planning European trips and brown stone houses on 
Russian Hill ! 



CHAPTEE XLII. 

TTTHAT to do next ? 

V V It was a momentous question. I had gon«? out into 
the world to shift for myself, at the age of thirteen (for my 
father had endorsed for friends ; and although he left us a 
sumptuous legacy of pride in his fine Yirginian stock and its 
national distinction, I presently found that I could not live on 
that alone without occasional bread to wash it down with). I 
had gained a livelihood in various vocations, but had not 
dazzled anybody with my successes ; still the list was before me, 
and the amplest liberty in the matter of choosing, provided I 
wanted to work — which I did not, after being so wealthy. I 
had once been a grocery clerk, for one day, but had consumed 
so much sugar in that time that I was relieved from further 
duty by the proprietor ; said he wanted me outside, so that he 
could have my custom. I had studied law an entire week, 
and then given it up because it was so prosy and tiresome. I 
had engaged briefly in the study of blacksmithing, but wasted 
so much time trying to fix the bellows so that it would blow 
itself, that the master turned me adrift in disgrace, and told 
me I would come to no good. I had been a bookseller's clerk 
for awhile, but the customers bothered me so much I could 
not read with any comfort, and so the proprietor gave me a 
furlough and forgot to put a limit to it. I had clerked in a 
drug store part of a summer, but my prescriptions were un- 
lucky, and we appeared to sell more stomach pumps than soda 
water. So I had to go. I had made of myself a tolerable 
printer, under the impression that I would be another Frank- 



OBSTACLES TO MY SUCCESS. 



293 




ONE OF MY FAILURES. 



lin some day, but somehow had missed the connection thns far. 
There was no berth open in the Esmeralda Union, and besides 
I had always been 
such a slow compos- 
itor that I looked 
with envy upon the 
achievements of ap- 
prentices of two 
years' standing ; and 
when I took a 
"take," foremen 
were in the habit 
of suggesting that 
it would be wanted 
" some time during 
the year." I was a 
good average St. 
Louis and New 
Orleans pilot and by 
no means ashamed of my abilities in that line; wages were 
two hundred and fifty dollars a month and no board to pay, 
and I did long to stand behind a wheel again and never roam 
any more — but I had been making such an ass of myself lately 
in grandiloquent letters home about my blind lead and my 
European excursion that I did what many and many a poor 
disappointed miner had done before ; said " It is all over with 
me now, and I will never go back home to be pitied — and 
snubbed." I had been a private secretary, a silver miner and 
a silver mill operative, and amounted to less than nothing in 
each, and now — 

What to do next ? 

I yielded to Higbie's appeals and consented to try the 
mining once more. We climbed far up on the mountain side 
and went to work on a little rubbishy claim of ours that had a 
shaft on it eight feet deep. Higbie descended into it and 
worked bravely with his pick till he had loosened up a deal 
of rock and dirt and then I went down with a long-handled 



29± 



I TRY A NEW PATH. 



shovel (the most awkward invention yet contrived by man) to 
throw it out. You must brace the shovel forward with the 
side of your knee till it is full, and then, with a skilful toss, 
throw it backward over your left shoulder. I made the toss, 
and landed the mess just on the edge of the shaft and it all 
came back on my head and down the back of my neck. I 
, ... never said a word, but 

climbed out and walked 
home. I inwardly resolved 
that I would starve before I 
would make a target of my- 
self and shoot rubbish at it 
with a long-handled shovel. 
I sat down, in the cabin, 
and gave myself up to solid 
misery — so to speak. Now 
in pleasanter days I had 
amused myself with writing 
letters to the chief paper of 
the Territory, the Virginia 
Daily Territorial Enter- 
prise, and had always been 
surprised when they ap- 
peared in print. My good 
opinion of the editors had 
steadily declined ; for it 
seemed to me that they might have found something better to 
fill up with than my literature. I had found a letter in the 
post office as T came home from the hill side, and finally I 
opened it. Eureka ! [I never did know what Eureka meant, 
but it seems to be as proper a word to heave in as any when 
no other that sounds pretty offers.] It was a deliberate offer 
to me of Twenty-Five Dollars a week to come up to Yirginia 
and be city editor of the Enterprise. 

I would have challenged the publisher in the " blind lead " 
days— I wanted to fall down and worship him, now. Twenty- 
Five Dollars a week— it looked like bloated luxury— a fortune 
a sinful and lavish waste of money. But my transports 




TARGET SHOOTING. 






FITTING FOR DUTY. 



295 



cooled when I thought of my inexperience and consequent 
unfitness for the position — and straightway, on top of this, my 
long array of failures rose up before me. Yet if I refused 
this place I must presently become dependent upon somebody 
for my bread, a thing necessarily distasteful to a man who had 
never experienced such a humiliation since he was thirteen 
years old. Not much to be proud of, since it is so common 
— but then it was all I had to he proud of. So I was scared 
into being a city editor. I would have declined, otherwise. 
Necessity is the mother of "taking chances." I do not doubt 
that if, at that time, I had been offered a salary to translate 
the Talmud from the original Hebrew, I would have accepted 
— albeit with diffidence and some misgivings — and thrown as 
much variety into it as I could for the money. 

I went up to Virginia and entered upon my new vocation. 
I was a rusty looking city editor, I am free to confess — coat- 
less, slouch hat, blue woolen shirt, pantaloons stuffed into 
boot-tops, whiskered half 
down to the waist, and the 
universal navy revolver slung 
to my belt. But I secured a 
more Christian costume and 
discarded the revolver. I had 
never had occasion to kill 
anybody, nor ever felt a 
desire to do so, but had worn 
the thing in deference to 
popular sentiment, and in 
order that I might not, by its 
absence, be offensively con- 
spicuous, and a subject of 
remark. But the other edi- 
tors, and all the printers, 
carried revolvers. I asked 
the chief editor and proprietor (Mr. Goodman, I will call him, 
since it describes him as well as any name could do) for some 
instructions with regard to my duties, and he told me to go all 




AS CITY EDITOR. 



296 



MY FIRST EFFORT. 



over town and ask all sorts of people all sorts of questions, 
make notes of the information gained, and write them out for 
publication. And he added : 

" Never say ' We learn ' so-and-so, or ' It is reported, or ' It 
is rumored,' or 'We understand' so-and-so, but go to head- 
quarters and get the absolute facts, and then speak out and say 
' It is so-and-so.' Otherwise, people will not put confidence in 
your news. Unassailable certainty is the thing that gives a 
newspaper the firmest and most valuable reputation." 

It was the whole thing in a nut-shell ; and to this day 
when I find a reporter commencing his article with "We 
understand," I gather a suspicion that he has not taken as 
much pains to inform himself as he ought to have done. I 
moralize well, but I did not always practise well when I was a 
city editor ; I let fancy get the upper hand of fact too often 
when there was a dearth of news. I can never forget my first 
day's experience as a reporter. I wandered about town 
questioning everybody, boring everybody, and finding out that 
nobody knew anything. At the end of five hours my note- 
book was still barren. I spoke to Mr. Goodman. He said : 

" Dan used to make a good thing out of the hay wagons in 
a dry time when there were no fires or inquests. Are there 
no hay wagons in from the Truckee ? If there are, you might 

of the re^ 




newed activity and 
all that sort of thing, 
in the hay business, 
you know. It isn't 
sensational or ex- 
citing, but it fills up 
and looks business 
like." 

I canvassed the 

city again and found 

one wretched old 

hay truck dragging in from the country. But I made affluent 

use of it. I multiplied it by sixteen, brought it into town 



THE ENTIRE MARKET. 



: AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO GOOD. 1 



29' 



from sixteen different directions, made sixteen separate items 
out of it, and got up such another sweat about hay as Virginia 
City had never seen in the world before. 

This was encouraging. Two nonpareil columns had to be 
filled, and I was getting along. Presently, when things began 
to look dismal again, a desperado killed a man in a saloon and 
joy returned once more. I never was so glad over any mere 
trifle before in my life. I said to the murderer : 

" Sir, you are a stranger to me, but } t ou have done me a 
kindness this day which I can never forget. If whole years 
of gratitude can be to you any slight compensation, they shall 
be yours. I was in trouble and you have relieved me nobly 
and at a time when all 
seemed dark and drear. 
Count me your friend from 
this time forth, for I am 
not a man to forget a favor." 

If I did not really say 
that to him I at least felt a 
sort of itching desire to do 
it. I wrote up the murder 
with a hungry attention to 
details, and when it was 
finished experienced but one 
regret — namely, that they 
had not hanged my bene- 
factor on the spot, so that 
I could work him up too. 

Next I discovered some 
emigrant wagons going into 
camp on the plaza and found 
that they had lately come 
through the hostile Indian country and had fared rather 
roughly. I made the best of the item that the circumstances 
permitted, and felt that if I were not confined within rigid 
limits by the presence of the reporters of the other papers I 
could add particulars that would make the article much more 




A FRIEND INDEED. 



298 



MY LEGITIMATE CALLING. 



interesting. However, I found one wagon that was going on 
to California, and made some judicious inquiries of the pro- 
prietor. When I learned, through his short and surly answers 
to my cross-questioning, that he was certainly going on and 
would not be in the city next day to make trouble, I got 
ahead of the other papers, for I took down his list of names 
and added his party to the killed and wounded. Having 
more scope here, I put this wagon through an Indian fight 
that to this day has no parallel in history. 

My two columns were filled. When I read them over in 
the morning I felt that I had found my legitimate occupation 
at last. I reasoned within myself that news, and stirring news, 
too, was what a paper needed, and I felt that I was peculiarly 
endowed with the ability to furnish it. Mr. Goodman said 
that I was as good a reporter as Dan. I desired no higher 
commendation. With encouragement like that, I felt that I 
could take my pen and murder all the immigrants on the 
plains if need be and the interests of the paper demanded it. 




OHAPTEE XLIII. 

HOWEVER, as I grew better acquainted with the business 
and learned the run of the sources of information I 
ceased to require the aid of fancy to any large extent, and 
became able to fill my columns without diverging noticeably 
from the domain of fact. 

I struck up friendships with the reporters of the other 
journals, and we swapped " regulars " with each other and 
thus economized work. " Regulars " are permanent sources of 
news, like courts, bullion returns, " clean-ups " at the quartz 
mills, and inquests. Inasmuch as everybody went armed, we 
had an inquest about every day, and so this department 
was naturally set down among the " regulars." We had 
lively papers in those days. My great competitor among the 
reporters was Boggs of the Union. He was an excellent 
reporter. Once in three or four months he would get a little 
intoxicated, but as a general thing he was a wary and cautious 
drinker although always ready to tamper a little with the enemy. 
He had the advantage of me in one thing ; he could get the 
monthly public school report and I could not, because the 
principal hated the Enterprise. One snowy night when the 
report was due, I started out sadly wondering how I was going 
to get it. Presently, a few steps up the almost deserted street 
I stumbled on Boggs and asked him where he was going. 

" After the school report." 

" I'll go along with you." 

" No, sir. I'll excuse you." 

" Just as you say." 

A saloon-keeper's boy passed by with a steaming pitcher 



300 THE "UNION" GOT NO REPORT— WE DID. 

of hot punch, and Boggs snuffed the fragrance gratefully. He 
gazed fondly after the boy and saw him start up the Enter- 
prise stairs. I said : 

" I wish you could help me get that school business, but 
since you can't, I must run up to the Union office and see if I 
can get them to let me have a proof of it after they have set it 
up, though I don't begin to suppose they will. Good night." 

" Hold on a minute. I don't mind getting the report and 
sitting around with the boys a little, while you copy it, if you're 
willing to drop down to the principal's with me." 

" Now you talk like a rational being. Come along." 

We plowed a couple of blocks through the snow, got the 
report and returned to our office. It was a short document and 
soon copied. Meantime Boggs helped himself to the punch. 
I gave the manuscript back to him and we started out to get 
an inquest, for we heard pistol shots near by. We got the par- 
ticulars with little loss of time, for it was only an inferior sort of 
bar-room murder, and of little interest to the public, and then 
we separated. Away at three o'clock in the morning, when 
we had gone to press and were having a relaxing concert as 
usual — for some of the printers were good singers and others 
good performers on the guitar and on that atrocity the accor- 
deon — the proprietor of the Union strode in and desired to 
know if anybody had heard anything of Boggs or the school 
report. We stated the case, and all turned out to help hunt 
for the delinquent. We found him standing on a table in 
a saloon, with an old tin lantern in one hand and the 
school report in the other, haranguing a gang of intoxicated 
Cornish miners on the iniquity of squandering the public 
moneys on education " when hundreds and hundreds of honest 
hard-working men are literally starving for whiskey." [Riotous 
applause.] He had been assisting in a regal spree with those 
parties for hours. We dragged him away and put him to bed. 

Of course there was no school report in the Union, and 
Boggs held me accountable, though I was innocent of any in- 
tention or desire to compass its absence from that paper and 
was as sorry as any one that the misfortune had occurred. 



A PLEASANT EXCURSION. 



301 



But we were perfectly friendly. The day that the school 
report was next due, the proprietor of the " Genessee" mine 






AN EDUCATIONAL, REPORT. 



furnished us a buggy and asked us to go down and write some- 
thing about the property — a very common request and one 
always gladly acceded to when people furnished buggies, for 
we were as fond of pleasure excursions as other people. In due 
time we arrived at the "mine" — nothing but a hole in the 
ground ninety feet deep, and no way of getting down into it 
but by holding on to a rope and being lowered with a windlass. 
The workmen had just gone off somewhere to dinner. I was 
not strong enough to lower Boggs's bulk ; so I took an un- 
lighted candle in my teeth, made a loop for my foot in the 
end of the rope, implored Boggs not to go to sleep or let the 
windlass get the start of him, and then swung out over the 
shaft. I reached the bottom muddy and bruised about the 
elbows, but safe. I lit the candle, made an examination of 
the rock, selected some specimens and shouted to Boggs to 



302 ;he "union" gets a report— we don't. 



hoist away. No answer. Presently a head appeared in the 
circle of daylight away aloft, and a voice came down : 

"Are yon all set?" 
" All set — hoist away." 
" Are you comforta* 
ble?" 

" Perfectly." 
" Could you wait a lit- 
tle?" 

"Oh certainly — no 
particular hurry." 
"Well— good by." 
"Why? Where are 
you going ? " 

"After the school re- 
port ! " 

And he did. I staid 
down there an hour, and 
surprised the workmen 
when they hauled up and 
found a man on the rope 
instead of a bucket of rock. 
I walked home, too — five 
miles — up hill. We had 
no school report next morn- 




ing 



but the Union had. 



NO PARTICULAR HURRY. 



Six months after my 
entry into journalism the 
grand "flush times" of 
Silverland began, and tliej- 
continued with unabated 
splendor for three years. All difficulty about filling up the 
"local department" ceased, and the only trouble now was how 
to make the lengthened columns hold the world of incidents 
and happenings that came to our literary net every day. Vir- 
ginia had grown to be the " livest " town, for its age and popu- 
lation, that America had ever produced. The sidewalks 



VIRGINIA CITY. 303 

swarmed with people — to such an extent, indeed, that it was 
generally no easy matter to stem the human tide. The streets 
themselves were just as crowded with quartz wagons, freight 
teams and other vehicles. The procession was endless. So 
great was the pack, that buggies frequently had to wait half 
an hour for an opportunity to cross the principal street. Joy 
sat on every countenance, and there was a glad, almost fierce, 
intensity in every eye, that told of the money-getting schemes 
that were seething in every brain and the high hope that held 
sway in every heart. Money was as plenty as dust; every 
individual considered himself wealthy, and a melancholy coun- 
tenance was nowhere to be seen. There were military com- 
panies, fire companies, brass bands, banks, hotels, theatres, 
" hurdy-gurdy houses," wide-open gambling palaces, political 
pow-wows, civic processions, street fights, murders, inquests, 
riots, a whiskey mill every fifteen steps, a Board of Aldermen, 
a Mayor, a City Surveyor, a City Engineer, a Chief of the 
Fire Department, with First, Second and Third Assistants, 
a Chief of Police, City Marshal and a large police force, two 
Boards of Mining Brokers, a dozen breweries and half a 
dozen jails and station-houses in full operation, and some talk 
of building a church. The "flush times" were in magnificent 
flower! Large fire-proof brick buildings were going up in 
the principal streets, and the wooden suburbs were spreading 
out in all directions. Town lots soared up to prices that were 
amazing. 

The great " Comstock lode " stretched its opulent length 
straight through the town from north to south, and every mine 
on it was in diligent process of development. One of these 
mines alone employed six hundred and seventy-five men, and 
in the matter of elections the adage was, "as the ' Gould and 
Curry ' goes, so goes the city." Laboring men's wages were 
four and six dollars a day, and they worked in three " shifts " 
or gangs, and the blasting and picking and shoveling went on 
without ceasing, night and day. 

The " city " of Virginia roosted royally midway up the 
steep side of Mount Davidson, seven thousand two hundred 



304 



LOCATION AND SURROUNDINGS. 




feet above the level 
of the sea, and in the 
clear Nevada atmo- 
sphere was visible 
from a distance of 
fifty miles ! It 
claimed a population 
of fifteen thousand 
to eighteen thousand, 
and all day long half 
of this little army 
swarmed the streets 
like bees and the 
other half swarmed 
among the drifts and 
tunnels of the " Corn- 
stock," hundreds of 
feet down in the 
earth directly under 
those same streets. 
Often we felt our 
chairs jar, and heard 
the faint boom of a 
blast down in the 
bowels of the earth 
under the office. 

The mountain 
side was so steep that 
the entire town had a 
slant to it like a roof. 
Each street was a ter- 
race, and from each 
to the next street be- 
low the descent was 
forty or fifty feet. 
The fronts of the 
houses were level 
with the street they 



MAGNIFICENT PANORAMA. 305 

faced, but their rear first floors were propped on lofty stilts ; a 
man could stand at a rear first floor window of a C street 
house and look down the chimneys of the row of houses 
below him facing D street. It was a laborious climb, in that 
thin atmosphere, to ascend from D to A street, and you were 
panting and out of breath when you got there ; but you could 
turn around and go down again like a house a-fire — so to 
speak. The atmosphere was so rarified, on account of the 
great altitude, that one's blood lay near the surface always, 
and the scratch of a pin was a disaster worth worrying about, 
for the chances were that a grievous erysipelas would ensue. 
But to offset this, the thin atmosphere seemed to carry heal- 
ing to gunshot wounds, and therefore, to simply shoot your 
adversary through both lungs was a thing not likely to afford 
you any permanent satisfaction, for he would be nearly certain 
to be around looking for you within the month, and not with 
an opera glass, either. 

From Virginia's airy situation one could look over a vast, 
far-reaching panorama of mountain ranges and deserts ; and 
whether the day was bright or overcast, whether the sun was 
rising or setting, or flaming in the zenith, or whether night and 
the moon held sway, the spectacle was always impressive and 
beautiful. Over your head Mount Davidson lifted its gray 
dome, and before and below you a rugged canyon clove the 
battlemented hills, making a sombre gateway through which a 
soft-tinted desert was glimpsed, with the silver thread of a river 
winding through it, bordered with trees which many miles of 
distance diminished to a delicate fringe ; and still further away 
the snowy mountains rose up and stretched their long barrier 
to the filmy horizon — far enough beyond a lake that burned 
in the desert like a fallen sun, though that, itself, lay fifty 
miles removed. Look from your window where you would, 
there was fascination in the picture. At rare intervals — but 
very rare — there were clouds in our skies, and then the setting 
sun would gild and flush and glorify this mighty expanse of 
scenery with a bewildering pomp of color that held the eve 
like a spell and moved the spirit like music. 
20f 



CHAPTEE XLIV. 

"A /TY salary was increased to forty dollars a week. But I 
-LV-L seldom drew it. I had plenty of other resources, and 
what were two broad twenty-dollar gold pieces to a man who 
had his pockets full of such and a cumbersome abundance of 
bright half dollars besides ? [Paper money has never come 
into use on the Pacific coast.] Reporting was lucrative, and 
every man in the town was lavish with his money and his 
" feet." The city and all the great mountain side were riddled 
with mining shafts. There were more mines than miners. 
True, not ten of these mines were yielding rock worth hauling 
to a mill, but everybody said, " "Wait till the shaft gets down 
where the ledge comes in solid, and then you will see ! " So 
nobody was discouraged. These were nearly all " wild cat" 
mines, and wholly worthless, but nobody believed it then. The 
" Ophir," the " Gould & Curry," the " Mexican," and other 
great mines on the Comstock lead in Virginia and Gold Hill 
were turning out huge piles of rich rock every day, and every 
man believed that his little wild cat claim was as good as any 
on the " main lead " and would infallibly be worth a thousand 
dollars a foot when he " got down where it came in solid." 
Poor fellow, he was blessedly blind to the fact that he never 
would see that day. So the thousand wild cat shafts burrowed 
deeper and deeper into the earth day by day, and all men 
were beside themselves with hope and happiness. How they 
labored, prophesied, exulted ! Surely nothing like it was ever 



CREATING NEW STOCK. 



30? 



seen before since the world began. Every one of these wild 
cat mines — not mines, bnt holes in the ground over imaginary 
mines — was incorporated and had handsomely engraved 
" stock " and the stock was salable, too. It was bought and 
sold with a feverish avidity in the boards every day. You 
could go up on the mountain side, scratch around and find a 
ledge (there was no lack of them), put up a " notice " with a 
grandiloquent name in it, start a shaft, get your stock printed, 
and with nothing 
whatever to prove 
that your mine was 
worth a straw, you 
could put your stock 
on the market and 
sell out for hundreds 
and even thousands 
of dollars. To make 
money, and make it 
fast, was as easy as 
it was to eat your 
dinner. Every man 
owned "feet" in 
fifty different wild 
cat mines and con- 
sidered his fortune 
made. Think of a ; 
city with not one 
solitary poor man in it ! One would suppose that when month 
after month went by and still not a wild cat mine [by wild cat 
I mean, in general terms, any claim not located on the mother 
vein, i. e., the " Comstock") yielded a ton of rock worth 
crushing, the people would begin to wonder if they were not 
putting too much faith in their prospective riches ; but there 
was not a thought of such a thing. They burrowed away, 
bought and sold, and were happy. 

New claims were taken up daily, and it was the friendly 
custom to run straight to the newspaper offices, give the re- 




A NEW MINE. 



808 EDITORIAL PUFFING. 

porter forty or fifty " feet," and get them to go and examine 
the mine and publish a notice of it. They did not care a fig 
what you said about the property so you said something. 
Consequently we generally said a word or two to the effect 
that the " indications " were good, or that the ledge was " six 
feet wide," or that the rock " resembled the Comstock " (and 
so it did — but as a general thing the resemblance was not 
startling enough to knock you down). If the rock was moder- 
ately promising, we followed the custom of the country, used 
strong adjectives and frothed at the mouth as if a very marvel 
in silver discoveries had transpired. If the mine was a " de- 
veloped " one, and had no pay ore to show (and of course it 
hadn't), we praised the tunnel ; said it was one of the most 
infatuating tunnels in the land ; driveled and driveled about 
the tunnel till we ran entirely out of ecstasies — but never said 
a word about the rock. We would squander half a column of 
adulation on a shaft, or a new wire rope, or a dressed pine 
windlass, or a fascinating force pump, and close with a burst of 
admiration of the " gentlemanly and efficient Superintendent " 
of the mine — but never utter a whisper about the rock. And 
those people were always pleased, always satisfied. Occasion- 
ally we patched up and varnished our reputation for discrimi- 
nation and stern, undeviating accuracy, by giving some old 
abandoned claim a blast that ought to have made its dry bones 
rattle — and then somebody would seize it and sell it on the 
fleeting notoriety thus conferred upon it. 

There was nothing in the shape of a mining claim that was 
not salable. We received presents of " feet " every day. If 
we needed a hundred dollars or so, we sold some ; if not, we 
hoarded it away, satisfied that it would ultimately be worth 
a thousand dollars a foot. I had a trunk about half full of 
" stock." When a claim made a stir in the market and went 
up to a high figure, I searched through my pile to see if I had 
any of its stock — and generally found it. 

The prices rose and fell constantly ; but still a fall disturbed 
us little, because a thousand dollars a foot was our figure, and 
so we were content to let it fluctuate as much as it pleased till it 



NEIGHBORLY COMPLIMENTS. 



309 



reached it. My pile of stock was not all given to me by people 
who wished their claims u noticed." At least half of it was 
given me by persons who had no thought of such a thing, and 
looked for nothing more than a simple verbal " thank you ; " and 
you were not even obliged by law to furnish that. If you are 
coming up the street with a couple 
of baskets of apples in your hands, 
and you meet a friend, you natu- 
rally invite him to take a few. 
That describes the condition of 
things in Virginia in the "flush 
times." Every man had his pock- 
ets full of stock, and it was the 
actual custom of the country to 
part with small quantities of it to 
friends without the asking. Yery 
often it was a good idea to close the 
transaction instantly, when a man 
offered a stock present to a friend, §i | 
for the offer was only good and 
binding at that moment, and if 
the price went to a high figure 
shortly afterward the procrastina- 
tion was a thing to be regretted. 
Mr. Stewart (Senator, now, from 
Nevada) one day told me He 

would give me twenty feet of " Justis " stock if I would walk 
over to his office. It was worth five or ten dollars a foot, I 
asked him to make the offer good for next day, as I was just 
going to dinner. He said he would not be in town ; so I 
risked it and took my dinner instead of the stock. Within 
the week the price went up to seventy dollars and afterward 
to a hundred and fifty, but nothing could make that man yield. 
I suppose he sold that stock of mine and placed the guilty 
proceeds in his own pocket. [My revenge will be found in 
the accompanying portrait.] I met three friends one after- 
noon, who said they had been buying " Overman " stock at 




"TRY a few?" 



310 



DELATS ARE DANGEROUS. 




PORTRAIT OF MR. STEWART. 



auction at eight dollars a foot. One said if I would come up 
to his office he would give me fifteen feet ; another said he 
would add fifteen ; the third said he would do the same. But 

I was going after an inquest 
and could not stop. A few 
weeks afterward they sold all 
their " Overman " at six hun- 
dred dollars a foot and gen- 
erously came around to tell 
me about it — and also to urge 
me to accept of the next forty- 
five feet of it that people tried 
to force on me. These are 
actual facts, and I could make 
the list a long one and still 
confine myself strictly to the 
truth. Many a time friends 
gave us as much as twenty-five feet of stock that was selling 
at twenty-five dollars a foot, and they thought no more of it 
than they would of offering a guest a cigar. These were 
" flush times" indeed! I thought they were going to last 
always, but somehow I never was much of a prophet. 

To show what a wild spirit possessed the mining brain of 
the community, I will remark that " claims " were actually 
"located" in excavations for cellars, where the pick had ex- 
posed what seemed to be quartz veins — and not cellars in the 
suburbs, either, but in the very heart of the city ; and forth- 
with stock would be issued and thrown on the market. It was 
small matter who the cellar belonged to — the " ledge " belonged 
to the finder, and unless the United States government inter- 
fered (inasmuch as the government holds the primary right to 
mines of the noble metals in Nevada — or at least did then), 
it was considered to be his privilege to work it. Imagine a 
stranger staking out a mining claim among the costly shrub- 
bery m your front yard and calmly proceeding to lay waste 
the ground with pick and shovel and blasting powder ! It has 
been often done in California. In the middle of one of the 



SALTING MINES. 



311 



principal business streets of Virginia, a man "located" a 
mining claim and began a shaft on it. He gave me a hundred 
feet of the stock and I sold it for a fine suit of clothes because 
I was afraid somebody would fall down the shaft and sue for 
damages. I owned in another claim that was located in the 
middle of another street ; and to show how absurd people can 
be, that "East India" stock (as it was called) sold briskly 
although there was an ancient tunnel running directly under 
the claim and any man could go into it and see that it did not 
cut a quartz ledge or anything that remotely resembled one. 

One plan of acquiring sudden wealth was to " salt " a wild, 
cat claim and sell out while the excitement was up. The process 
was simple. 
The schemer 
located a 
worthless 
ledge, sunk 
a shaft on it, 
b o ugh t a 
wagon load 
of rich "Corn- 
stock" ore, 
dumped a 
portion of it 
into the shaft 
and piled the 
rest by its 
side, above 
ground. 
Then he 
showed the 
property to a 
simpleton 
and sold it to 

him at a high figure. Of course the wagon load of rich ore 
was all that the victim ever got out of his purchase. A 
most remarkable case of " salting " was that of the " North 
Ophir." It was claimecLthat this vein was a remote " exten- 




SELLING A MINE. 



312 A TRAGEDIAN IN A NEW ROLE. 

sion " of the original " Ophir," a valuable mine on the " Corn- 
stock." For a few days everybody was talking about the rich 
developments in the North Ophir. It was said that it yielded 
perfectly pure silver in small, solid lumps. I went to the 
place with the owners, and found a shaft six or eight feet 
deep, in the bottom of which was a badly shattered vein of 
dull, yellowish, unpromising rock. One would as soon expect 
to find silver in a grindstone. We got out a pan of the rub- 
bish and washed it in a puddle, and sure enough, among the 
sediment we found half a dozen black, bullet-looking pellets 
of unimpeachable " native " silver. Nobody had ever heard 
of such a thing before ; science could not account for such a 
queer novelty. The stock rose to sixty-five dollars a foot, and 
at this figure the world-renowned tragedian, McKean Bucha- 
nan, bought a commanding interest and prepared to quit the 
stage once more — he was always doing that. And then it 
transpired that the mine had been " salted " — and not in any 
hackneyed way, either, but in a singularly bold, barefaced and 
peculiarly original and outrageous fashion. On one of the 
lumps of " native " silver was discovered the minted legend, 
" ted States of," and then it was plainly apparent that the 
mine had been " salted " with melted half-dollars ! The lumps 
thus obtained had been blackened till they resembled native 
silver, and were then mixed with the shattered rock in the 
bottom of the shaft. It is literally true. Of course the price 
of the stock at once fell to nothing, and the tragedian was 
ruined. But for this calamity we might have lost McKean 
Buchanan from the stage. 



OHAPTEE XLT. 

THE " flush times " held bravely on. Something over two 
years before, Mr. Goodman and another journeyman 
printer, had borrowed forty dollars and set out from San 
Francisco to try their fortunes in the new city of Yirginia. 
They found the Territorial Enterprise, a poverty-stricken 
weekly journal, gasping for breath and likely to die. They 
bought it, type, fixtures, good-will and all, for a thousand dok 
lars, on long time. The editorial sanctum, news-room, press- 
room, publication office, bed-chamber, parlor, and kitchen were 
all compressed into one apartment and it was a small one, 
too. The editors and printers slept on the floor, a China- 
man did their cooking, and the " imposing-stone " was the 
general dinner table. But now things were changed. The 
paper was a great daily, printed by steam ; there were five 
editors and twenty-three compositors; the subscription price 
was sixteen dollars a year ; the advertising rates were exorbi- 
tant, and the columns crowded. The paper was clearing from 
six to ten thousand dollars a month, and the " Enterprise Build- 
ing" was finished and ready for occupation — a stately fire- 
proof brick. Every day from five all the way up to eleven 
columns of " live " advertisements were left out or crowded 
into spasmodic and irregular " supplements." 

The " Gould & Curry " company were erecting a monster 
hundred-stamp mill at a cost that ultimately fell little short of 
a million dollars. Gould & Curry stock paid heavy dividends 
• — a rare thing, and an experience confined to the dozen or fif- 



314: BANITAB7 COMMISSION FUND. 

teen claims located on the " main lead," the " Comstock." The 
Superintendent of the Gould & Curry lived, rent free, in a 
fine house built and furnished by the company. He drove a 
fine pair of horses which were a present from the company, 
and his salary was twelve thousand dollars a year. The super- 
intendent of another of the great mines traveled in grand 
state, had a salary of twenty-eight thousand dollars a year, and 
in a law suit in after days claimed that he was to have had 
one per cent, on the gross yield of the bullion likewise. 

Money was wonderfully plenty. The trouble was, not 
■ how to get it, — but how to spend it, how to lavish it, 
get rid of it, squander it. And so it was a happy thing 
that just at this juncture the news came over the wires 
that a great United States Sanitary Commission had been 
formed and money was wanted for the relief of the wounded 
sailors and soldiers of the Union languishing in the Eastern 
hospitals. Right on the heels of it came word that San 
Francisco had responded superbly before the telegram was 
half a day old. Virginia rose as one man ! A Sanitary 
Committee was hurriedly organized, and its chairman mounted 
a vacant cart in C street and tried to make the clamorous mul- 
titude understand that the rest of the committee were flying 
hither and thither and working with all their might and main, 
and that if the town would only wait an hour, an office would 
be ready, books opened, and the Commission prepared to 
receive contributions. His voice was drowned and his infor- 
mation lost in a ceaseless roar of cheers, and demands that 
the money be received now — they swore they would not wait. 
The chairman pleaded and argued, but, deaf to all entreaty, 
men plowed their way through the throng and rained checks 
,of gold coin into the cart and skurried away for more. Hands 
.clutching money, were thrust aloft out of the jam by men who 
hoped this eloquent appeal would cleave a road their strag- 
glings could not open. The very Chinamen and Indians 
caught the excitement and dashed their half dollars into the 
cart without knowing or caring what it was all about. Women 
plunged into the crowd, trimly attired, fought their way to the 



WILD ENTHUSIASM OF THE PEOPLE. 



315 



cart with their coin, and emerged again, by and by, with their 
apparel in a state of hopeless dilapidation. It was the wildest 
mob Virginia had ever seen and the most determined and un- 
governable ; and when at last it abated its fury and dispersed, 




couldn't wait. 

it had not a penny in its pocket. To use its own phraseology, 
it came there " flush " and went away " busted." 

After that, the Commission got itself into systematic work- 
ing order, and for weeks the contributions flowed into its 
treasury in a generous stream. Individuals and all sorts of 
organizations levied upon themselves a regular weekly tax for 



316 THE SANITARY FLOUR SACK. 

the sanitary fund, graduated according to their means, and 
there was not another grand universal outburst till the famous 
" Sanitary Flour Sack " came our way. Its history is peculiar 
and interesting. A former schoolmate of mine, by the name 
of Reuel Gridley, was living at the little city of Austin, in 
the Reese river country, at this time, and was the Democratic 
candidate for mayor He and the Republican candidate made 
an agreement that the defeated man should be publicly pre- 
sented with a fifty-pound sack of flour by the successful one, 
and should carry it home on his shoulder. Gridley was 
defeated. The new mayor gave him the sack of flour, and he 
shouldered it and carried it a mile or two, from Lower Austin 
to his home in Upper Austin, attended by a band of music and 
the whole population. Arrived there, he said he did not need 
the flour, and asked what the people thought he had better do 
with it. A voice said : 

" Sell it to the highest bidder, for the benefit of the Sani- 
tary fund." 

The suggestion was greeted with a round of applause, and 
Gridley mounted -a dry-goods box and assumed the role of 
auctioneer. The bids went higher and higher, as the sympa- 
thies of the pioneers awoke and expanded, till at last the sack 
was knocked down to a mill man at two hundred and fifty 
dollars, and his check taken. He was asked where he would 
have the flour delivered, and he said : 

" Nowhere — sell it again." 

Now the cheers went up royally, and the multitude were 
fairly in the spirit of the thing. So Gridley stood there and 
shouted and perspired till the sun went down ; and when the 
crowd dispersed he had sold the sack to three hundred different 
people, and had taken in eight thousand dollars in gold. And 
still the flour sack was in his possession. 

The news came to Virginia, and a telegram went back : 

" Fetch along your flour sack ! " 

Thirty-six hours afterward Gridley arrived, and an after- 
noon mass meeting was held in the Opera House, and the 
auction began. But the sack had come sooner than it was 



THE SACK IN GOLD HILL AND DAYTON. 317 

expected ; the people were not thoroughly aroused, and the 
sale dragged. At nightfall only five thousand dollars had 
been secured, and there was a crestfallen feeling in the com- 
munity. However, there was no disposition to let the matter 
rest here and acknowledge vanquishment at the hands of the 
village of Austin. Till late in the night the principal citizens 
were at work arranging the morrow's campaign, and when 
they went to bed they had no fears for the result. At eleven 
the next morning a procession of open carriages, attended by 
clamorous bands of music and adorned with a moving display 
of flags, filed along C street and was soon in danger of 
blockade by a huzzaing multitude of citizens. In the first 
carriage sat Gridley, with the flour sack in prominent view, 
the latter splendid with bright paint and gilt lettering ; also in 
the same carriage sat the mayor and the recorder. The other 
carriages contained the Common Council, the editors and 
reporters, and other people of imposing consequence. The 
crowd pressed to the corner of C and Taylor streets, expecting 
the sale to begin there, but they were disappointed, and also 
unspeakably surprised; for the cavalcade moved on as if 
Virginia had ceased to be of importance, and took its way 
over the "divide," toward the small town of Gold Hill. 
Telegrams had gone ahead to Gold Hill, Silver City and 
Dayton, and those communities were at fever heat and 
rife for the conflict. It was a very hot day, and wonderfully 
dusty. At the end of a short half hour we descended into 
Gold Hill with drums beating and colors flying, and enveloped 
in imposing clouds of dust. The whole population — men, 
women and children, Chinamen and Indians, were massed in 
the main street, all the flags in town were at the mast head, 
and the blare of the bands was drowned in cheers. Gridley 
stood up and asked who would make the first bid for the 
National Sanitary Flour Sack. Gen. W. said : 

" The Yellow Jacket silver mining company offers a thou- 
sand dollars, coin ! " 

A tempest of applause followed. A telegram carried 
the news to Yirginia, and fifteen minutes afterward that city's 



318 RETURNED TO VIRGINIA CITY. 

population was massed in the streets devouring the tidings — 
for it was part of the programme that the bulletin boards 
should do a good work that day. Every few minutes a new 
dispatch was bulletined from Gold Hill, and still the excite- 
ment grew. Telegrams began to return to us from Virginia 
beseeching Gridley to bring back the flour sack; but such 
was not the plan of the campaign. At the end of an hour 
Gold Hill's small population had paid a figure for the flour 
sack that awoke all the enthusiasm of Virginia when the grand 
total was displayed upon the bulletin boards. Then the 
Gridley cavalcade moved on, a giant refreshed with new lager 
beer and plenty of it — for the people brought it to the 
carriages without waiting to measure it — and within three 
hours more the expedition had carried Silver City and Dayton 
by storm and was on its way back covered with glory. Every 
move had been telegraphed and bulletined, and as the pro- 
cession entered Virginia and filed down C street at half past 
eight in the evening the town was abroad in the thorough- 
fares, torches were glaring, flags flying, bands playing, cheer 
on cheer cleaving the air, and the city ready to surrender at 
discretion. The auction began, every bid was greeted with 
bursts of applause, and at the end of two hours and a half a 
population of fifteen thousand souls had paid in coin for a 
fifty-pound sack of flour a sum equal to forty thousand dollars 
in greenbacks ! It was at a rate in the neighborhood of three 
dollars for each man, woman and child of the population. 
The grand total would have been twice as large, but the 
streets were very narrow, and hundreds who wanted to bid 
could not get within a block of the stand, and could not make 
themselves heard. These grew tired of waiting and many of 
them went home long before the auction was over. This was 
the greatest day Virginia ever saw, perhaps. 

Gridley sold the sack in Carson city and several California 
towns ; also in San Francisco. Then he took it east and sold 
it in one or two Atlantic cities, I think. I am not sure of 
that, but I know that he finally carried it to St. Louis, where a 
monster Sanitary Fair was being held, and after selling it 



MR. GRIDLEI AND HIS LABORS 



319 



there for a large sum and helping on the enthusiasm by dis- 
playing the portly silver bricks which Nevada's donation had 
produced, he had the flour baked up into small cakes and re- 
tailed them at high prices. 

It was estimated that when the flour sack's mission was 
ended it had been sold for a grand total of a hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars in greenbacks! This is probably the only 
instance on record^where common family flour brought three 
thousand dollars a pound in the public market. 

It is due to Mr. Gridley's memory to mention that the 
expenses of his sanitary flour sack expedition of fifteen thou- 
sand miles, going and returning, were paid in large part, if 
not entirely, out of his own pocket. The time he gave to it 
was not less than three months. Mr. Gridley was a soldier 
in the Mexican war and a pioneer Californian. He died at 
Stockton, California, in December, 1870, greatly regretted. 




OHAPTEE XLTI. 

THEKE were nabobs in those days — in the " flush times," 
I mean. Every rich strike in the mines created one or 
two. I call to mind several of these. They were careless, 
easy-going fellows, as a general thing, and the community at 
large was as much benefited by their riches as they were 
themselves — possibly more, in some cases. 

Two cousins, teamsters, did some hauling for a man and 
had to take a small segregated portion of a silver mine in lieu 
of $300 cash. They gave an outsider a third to open the 
mine, and they went on teaming. But not long. Ten months 
afterward the mine was out of debt and paying each owner 
$8,000 to $10,000 a month— say $100,000 a year. 

One of the earliest nabobs that Nevada was delivered of 
wore $6,000 worth of diamonds in his bosom, and swore he 
was unhappy because he could not spend his money as fast as 
he made it. 

Another Nevada nabob boasted an income that often 
reached $16,000 a month ; and he used to love to tell how he 
had worked in the very mine that yielded it, for five dollars a 
day, when he first came to the country. 

The silver and sage-brush State has knowledge of another 
of these pets of fortune — lifted from actual poverty to affluence 
almost in a single night — who was able to offer $100,000 for a 
position of high official distinction, shortly afterward, and did 
offer it — but failed to get it, his politics not being as sound as 
'us bank account. 



A TRAVELING NABOB. 



321 



Then there was John Smith. He was a good, honest, kind- 
hearted soul, born and reared in the lower ranks of life, and 
miraculously ignorant. He drove a team, and owned a small 
ranch — a ranch that paid him a comfortable living, for al- 
though it yielded but little hay, what little it did yield was 
worth from $250 to $300 in gold per ton in the market. 
Presently Smith traded a few acres of the ranch for a small 
undeveloped silver mine in Gold Hill. He opened the mine 
and built a little unpretending ten-stamp mill. Eighteen 
months afterward he retired from the hay business, for his 
mining income had reached a most comfortable figure. Some 
people said it was $30,000 a month, and others said it was 
$60,000. Smith was very rich at any rate. 

And then he went to Europe and traveled. And when he 
came back he was never tired of telling about the fine hogs he 
had seen in England, and 
the gorgeous sheep he had 
seen in Spain, and the fine 
cattle he had noticed in the 
vicinity of Kome. He was 
full of the wonders of the 
old world, and advised every- 
body to travel. He said a 
man never imagined what 
surprising things there were 
in the world till he had 
traveled. 

One day, on board ship, 
the passengers made up a 
pool of $500, which wac to 
be the property of the man 
who should come nearest to 
guessing the run of the ves- 
sel for the next twenty-four 
hours. Next day, toward 
noon, the figures were all in the purser's hands in sealed en- 
velopes. Smith was serene and happy, for he had been brib- 
21f 




3*22 INSTANCES OF SUDDEN WEALTH. 

ing the engineer. But another party won the prize ! Smith 
said: 

" Here, that won't do ! He guessed two miles wider of 
the mark than I did." 

The purser said, a Mr. Smith, you missed it further than 
any man on board. We traveled two hundred and eight miles 
yesterday." 

"Well, sir," said Smith, "that's just where I've got you, 
for I guessed two hundred and nine. If you'll look at my 
figgers again you'll find a 2 and two O's, which stands for 200, 
don't it ? — and after 'em you'll find a 9 (2009), which stands 
for two hundred and nine. I reckon I'll take that money, if 
you please." 

The Gould & Curry claim comprised twelve hundred feet, 
and it all belonged originally to the two men whose names it 
bears. Mr. Curry owned two thirds of it — and he said that he 
sold it out for twenty-five hundred dollars in cash, and an old 
plug horse that ate up his market value in hay and barley in 
seventeen days by the watch. And he said that Gould sold 
out for a pair of second-hand government blankets and a bot- 
tle of whisky that killed nine men in three hours, and that an 
unoffending stranger that smelt the cork was disabled for life. 
Four years afterward the mine thus disposed of was worth in 
the San Francisco market seven millions six hundred thousand 
dollars in gold coin. 

In the early days a poverty-stricken Mexican who lived in 
a canyon directly back of Virginia City, had a stream of water 
as large as a man's wrist trickling from the hill-side on his 
premises. The Ophir Company segregated a hundred feet of 
their mine and traded it to him for the stream of water. The 
hundred feet proved to be the richest part of the entire 
mine ; four years after the swap, its market value (including 
its mill) was $1,500,000. 

An individual who owned twenty feet in the Ophir mine 
before its great riches were revealed to men, traded it for a 
horse, and a very sorry looking brute he was, too. A year or 
so afterward, when Ophir stock went up to $3,000 a foot, this 



A TELEGRAPH OPERATOR. 



323 



man, who had not a cent, used to say he was the most startling 
example of magnificence and misery the world had ever seen 
— because he was able to ride a sixty-thousand-dollar horse — 
yet could not scrape up cash enough to buy a saddle, and was 
obliged to borrow one 
or ride bareback. He 
said if fortune were to 
give him another sixty- 
thousand-dollar horse it 
would ruin him. 

A youth of nineteen, 
who was a telegraph 
operator in Virginia on 
a salary of a hundred 
dollars a month, and 
who, when he could not 
make out German names 
in the list of San Fran- 
cisco steamer arrivals, 
used to ingeniously se- 
lect and supply substi- 
tutes for them out of an 
old Berlin city directory, 
made himself rich by 
watching the mining 
telegrams that passed through his hands and buying and sell- 
ing stocks accordingly, through a friend in San Francisco. 
Once when a private dispatch was sent from Virginia an- 
nouncing a rich strike in a prominent mine and advising that 
the matter be kept secret till a large amount of the stock could 
be secured, he bought forty "feet" of the stock at twenty 
dollars a foot, and afterward sold half of it at eight hundred 
dollars a foot and the rest at double that figure. Within three 
months he was worth $150,000, and had resigned his telegraphic 
position. 

Another telegraph operator who had been discharged by 
the company for divulging the secrets of the office, agreed 




MAGNIFICENCE AND MISERY. 



324 A HUNDRED DOLLAR INVESTMENT. 

with a moneyed man in San Francisco to furnish him the 
result of a great Virginia mining lawsuit within an hour after 
its private reception by the parties to it in San Francisco. 
For this he was to have a large percentage of the profits on 
purchases and sales made on it by his fellow-conspirator. So 
he went, disguised as a teamster, to a little wayside telegraph 
office in the mountains, got acquainted with the operator, and 
sat in the office day after day, smoking his pipe, complaining 
that his team was fagged out and unable to travel — and mean- 
time listening to the dispatches as they passed clicking through 
the machine from Yirginia. Finally the private dispatch an- 
nouncing the result of the lawsuit sped over the wires, and as 
soon as he heard it he telegraphed his friend in San Francisco : 

" Am tired waiting. Shall sell the team and go home." 

It was the signal agreed upon. The word " waiting " left 
out, would have signified that the suit had gone the other way. 
The mock teamster's friend picked up a deal of the mining 
stock, at low figures, before the news became public, and a 
fortune was the result. 

For a long time after one of the great Yirginia mines had 
been incorporated, about fifty feet of the original location were 
still in the hands of a man who had never signed the incorpo- 
ration papers. The stock became very valuable, and every 
efibrt was made to find this man, but he had disappeared. 
Once it was heard that he was in New York, and one or two 
speculators went east but failed to find him. Once the news 
came that he was in the Bermudas, and straightway a specu- 
lator or two hurried east and sailed for Bermuda — but he was 
not there. Finally he was heard of in Mexico, and a friend 
of his, a bar-keeper on a salary, scraped together a little money 
and sought him out, bought his " feet " for a hundred dollars, 
returned and sold the property for $75,000. 

But why go on ? The traditions of Silverland are filled 
with instances like these, and I would never get through enu- 
merating them were I to attempt do it. I only desired to give, 
the reader an idea of a peculiarity of the "flush times" which 
I could not' present so strikingly in any other way, and which » 



NEVADA NABOBS IN NEW YORK. 325 

some mention of was necessary to a realizing comprehension 
of the time and the country. 

I was personally acquainted with the majority of the 
nabobs I have referred to, and so, for old acquaintance sake, 
I have shifted their occupations and experiences around in 
such a way as to keep the Pacific public from recognizing 
these once notorious men. No longer notorious, for the 
majority of them have drifted back into poverty and obscurity 
again. 

In Nevada there used to be current the story of an adven- 
ture of two of her nabobs, which may or may not have 
occurred. I give it for what it is worth : 

Col. Jim had seen somewhat of the world, and knew more 
or less of its ways ; but Col. Jack was from the back settle- 
ments of the States, had led a life of arduous toil, and had 
never seen a city. These two, blessed with sudden wealth, 
projected a visit to New York, — Col. Jack to see the sights, 
and Col. Jim to guard his unsophistication from misfortune. 
They reached San Francisco in the night, and sailed in the 
morning. Arrived in New York, Col. Jack said : 

" I've heard tell of carriages all my life, and now I mean to 
have a ride in one ; I don't care what it costs. Come along." 

They stepped out on the sidewalk, and Col. Jim called a 
stylish barouche. But Col. Jack said : 

" JYo, sir ! None of your cheap- John turn-outs for me. 
I'm here to have a good time, and money ain't any object. I 
mean to have the nobbiest rig that's going. Now here comes 
the very trick. Stop that yaller one with the pictures on it — 
don't you fret — I'll stand all the expenses myself." 

So Col. Jim stopped an empty omnibus, and they got in. 
Said Col. Jack : 

" Ain't it gay, though? Oh, no, I reckon not! Cush- 
ions, and windows, and pictures, till you can't rest. What 
would the boys say if they could see us cutting a swell like 
this in New York ? By George, I wish they could see us." 

Then he put his head out of the window, and shouted to 
the driver : 



326 



"CHARTERED SHEBANG." 



" Say, Johnny, this suits nne ! — suits yours truly, you bet, 
you ! I want this shebang all day. I'm on it, old man ! Let 
'em out ! Make 'em go ! We'll make it all right with you, 
sonny ! " 

The driver passed his hand through the strap-hole, and tap- 
ped for his fare — it was before the gongs came into common 
use. Col. Jack took the hand, and shook it cordially. He 
said: 

"You twig me, old pard! All right between gents. 
Smell of that, and see how you like it ! " 

And he put a twenty-dollar gold piece in the driver's 
hand. After a moment 
the driver said he could 
not make change. 

" Bother the change ! 
Ride it out. Put it in 
your pocket." 

Then to Col. Jim, with 
a sounding slap on his 
thigh: 

"AinH it style, though ? 
Hanged if I don't hire 
this thing every day for a 
week." 

The omnibus stopped, 
and a young lady got in. 
Col. Jack stared a moment, 
then nudged Col. Jim with 
his elbow : 

"Don't say a word," 
he whispered. "Let her 
ride, if she wants to. Gracious, there's room enough." 

The young lady got out her porte-monnaie, and handed her 
fare to Col. Jack. 

"What's this for?" said he. 

" Give it to the driver, please." 

"Take back your money, madam. We can't allow it. 




A FRIENDLY DRIVER. 



A FINE RIDE ON BROADWAY. 



327 



You're welcome to ride here as long as you please, but this she- 
bang's chartered, and we can't let you pay a cent." 

The girl shrunk into a corner, bewildered. An old lady 
with a basket climbed in, and proffered her fare. 

" Excuse me," said Col. Jack. " You're perfectly welcome 
here, madam, but we can't allow you to pay. Set right down 
there, mum, and don't you be the least uneasy. Make your- 
self just as free as if you was in your own turn-out." 

Within two minutes, three gentlemen, two fat women, and 
a couple of children, entered. 

" Come right along, friends," said Col. Jack ; " don't mind 
us. This is a free blow-out." Then he whispered to Col. 
Jim, " New York ain't no sociable place, I don't reckon — it 
ain't no name for it ! " 

He resisted every effort to pass fares to the driver, and 

made everybody cordially 
welcome. The situation 
dawned on the people, and 
they pocketed their money, 
and delivered themselves 
up to covert enjoyment of 
the episode. Half a dozen 
more passengers entered. 

" Oh, there's plenty 
of room," said Col. Jack. 
" Walk right in, and make 
yourselves at home. A 
blow-out ain't worth any- 
thing as a blow-out, unless 
a body has company." Then in a whisper to Col. Jim : " But 
ainH these New Yorkers friendly ? And ain't they cool about 
it, too ? Icebergs ain't anywhere. I reckon they'd tackle a 
hearse, if it was going their way." 

More passengers got in ; more yet, and still more. Both 
seats were filled, and a file of men were standing up, holding 
on to the cleats overhead. Parties with baskets and bundles 
were climbing up on the roof. Half-suppressed laughter rip- 
pled up from all sides. 




ASTONISHES THE NATIVES. 



32S 



NEW YORKERS BECOME SOCIABLE. 



" Well, for clean, cool, out-and-out cheek, if this don't bang 
anything that ever I saw, I'm an Injun ! " whispered^Col. 
Jack. 

A Chinaman crowded his way in. 

" I weaken ! " said Col. Jack. " Hold on, driver ! Keep 
your seats, ladies and gents. Just make yourselves free — 
everything's paid for. Driver, rustle these folks around as 
long as they're a mind to go — friends of ours, you know. 
Take them everywheres — and if you want more money, come 




COL. JACK "WEAKENS 



to the St. Nicholas, and we'll make it all right. Pleasant 
journey to you, ladies and gents — go it just as long as you 
please — it shan't cost you a cent ! " 

The two comrades got out, and Col. Jack said : 
" Jimmy, it's the sociablest place / ever saw. The China- 
man waltzed in as comfortable as anybody. If we'd staid 
awhile, I reckon we'd had some niggers. B' George, we'll 
have to barricade our doors to-night, or some of these ducks 
will be trying to sleep with us." 



CHAPTEE XLVII. 

SOMEBODY has said that in order to know a community, 
one must observe the style of its funerals and know 
what manner of men they bury with most ceremony. I can- 
not say which class we buried with most eclat in our "flush 
times," the distinguished public benefactor or the distinguished 
rough — possibly the two chief grades or grand divisions of 
society honored their illustrious dead about equally; and 
hence, no doubt the philosopher I have quoted from would 
have needed to see two representative funerals in Virginia 
before forming his estimate of the people. 

There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. 
He was a representative citizen. He had "killed his man" — 
not in his own quarrel, it is true, but in defence of a stranger 
unfairly beset by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. 
He had been the proprietor of a dashing helpmeet whom he 
could have discarded without the formality of a divorce. He 
had held a high position in the fire department and been a 
very Warwick in politics. When he died there was great 
lamentation throughout the town, but especially in the vast 
bottom-stratum of society. 

On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the 
delirium of a wasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot 
himself through the body, cut his throat, °nd jumped out of a 
four-story window and broken his neck — and after due delib- 
eration, the jury, sad and tearful, but with intelligence un- 
blinded by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of death " by the 
visitation of God." What could the world do without juries ? 

Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All 
the vehicles in town were hired, all the saloons put in mourn- 



330 SCOTTY BRIGGS THE COMMITTEEMAN. 

ing, all the municipal and fire-company flags Imng at half-mast, 
and all the firemen ordered to muster in uniform and bring 
their machines duly draped in black. Now — let us remark in 
parenthesis — as all the peoples of the earth had representative 
adventurers in the Silverland, and as each adventurer had 
brought the slang of his nation or his locality with him, the 
combination made the slang of Nevada the richest and the 
most infinitely varied and copious that had ever existed any- 
where in the world, perhaps, except in the mines of California 
in the " early days." Slang was the language of Nevada. It 
was hard to preach a sermon without it, and be understood. 
Such phrases as " You bet ! " " Oh, no, I reckon not ! " " No 
Irish need apply," and a hundred others, became so common 
as to fall from the lips of a speaker unconsciously — and very 
often when they did not touch the subject under discussion 
find consequently failed to mean anything. 

After Buck Fanshaw's inquest, a meeting of the short- 
haired brotherhood was held, for nothing can be done on the 
Pacific coast without a public meeting and an expression of 
sentiment. Regretful resolutions were passed and various 
committees appointed ; among others, a committee of one was 
deputed to call on the minister, a fragile, gentle ,spirituel new 
fledgling from an Eastern theological seminary, and as yet un- 
acquainted with the ways of the mines. The committeeman, 
"Scotty" Briggs, made his visit; and in after days it was 
worth something to hear the minister tell about it. Scotty 
was a stalwart rough, whose customary suit, when on weighty 
official business, like committee work, was a fire helmet, flam- 
ing red flannel shirt, patent leather belt with spanner and 
revolver attached, coat hung over arm, and pants stufl'ed into 
boot tops. He formed something of a contrast to the pale 
theological student. It is fair to say of Scotty, however, in 
passing, that he had a warm heart, and a strong love for his 
friends, and never entered into a quarrel when he could rea- 
sonably keep out of it. Indeed, it was commonly said that 
whenever one of Scotty' s fights was investigated, it always 
turned out that it had originally been no affair of his, but that 
out of native goodheartedness he had dropped in of his own 



INTERVIEW WITH THE CLERGYMAN. 



331 



accord to help the man who was getting the worst of it. He 
and Buck Fanshaw were bosom friends, for years, and had 
often taken adventurous " pot-luck" together. On one occa- 
sion, they had thrown off their coats and taken the weaker side 
in a fight among strangers, and after gaining a hard-earned 
victory, turned and found that the men they were helping had 
deserted early, and not only that, but had stolen their coats 
and made off with them ! But to return to Scotty's visit to 
the minister. He was on a sorrowful mission, now, and his 
face was the picture of woe. Being admitted to the presence 
he sat down before the clergyman, placed his fire-hat on an 
unfinished manuscript sermon under the minister's nose, took 
from it a red silk handkerchief, wiped his brow and heaved a 
sigh of dismal impressiveness, explanatory of his business. 




COMMITTEEMAN AND MINISTER. 



He choked, and even shed tears ; but with an effort he 
mastered his voice and said in lugubrious tones : 

" Are you the duck that runs the gospel-mill next door ? " 
" Am I the — pardon me, I believe I do not understand ? " 
With another sigh and a half-sob, Scotty rejoined : 



332 SCOTTY CAN'T PLAT HIS HAND. 

" Why you see we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys 
thought maybe you would give us a lift, if we'd tackle you — 
that is, if I've got the rights of it and you are the head clerk 
of the doxology-works next door." 

"lam the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is 
next door." 

"The which?" 

" The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers 
whose sanctuary adjoins these premises." 

Scotty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and then 
sai'd : 

" You ruther hold over me, pard. I reckon I can't call 
that hand. Ante and pass the buck." 

" How ? I beg pardon. What did I understand you to 
say?" 

" Well, you've ruther got the bulge on me. Or maybe 
we've both got the bulge, somehow. You don't smoke me 
and I don't smoke you. You see, one of the boys has passed 
in his checks and we want to give him a good send-off, and so 
the thing I'm on now is to roust out somebody to jerk a little 
chin-music for us and waltz him through handsome." 

"My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. 
Your observations are wholly incomprehensible to me. Can- 
not you simplify them in some way? At first I thought 
perhaps I understood you, but I grope now. Would it not 
expedite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical 
statements of fact unencumbered with obstructing accumula- 
tions of metaphor and allegory ? " 

Another pause, and more reflection. Then, said Scotty : 

" I'll have to pass, I judge." 

"How?" 

" You've raised me out, pard." 

" I still fail to catch your meaning." 

"Why, that last lead of yourn is too many for me — that's 
the idea. I can't neither trump nor follow suit." 

The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed. Scotty 
leaned his head on his hand and gave himself up to thought. 
Presently his face came up, sorrowful but confident. 



THE MINISTER A LITTLE MIXED. 333 

" I've got it now, so's you can savvy," he said. " What we 
want is a gospel-sharp. See % " 

"A what ? " 

" Gospel-sharp. Parson." 

" Oh ! Why did you not say so before ? I am a clergy- 
man — a parson." 

" Now you talk ! You see my blind and straddle it like a 
man. Put it there ! " — extending a brawny paw, which closed 
over the minister's small hand and gave it a shake indicative 
of fraternal sympathy and fervent gratification. 

" Now we're all right, pard. Let's start fresh. Don't you 
mind my snuffling a little — becuz we're in a power of trouble. 
You see, one of the boys has gone up the flume— 1 " 

"Gone where?" 

" Up the flume — throwed up the sponge, you understand." 

" Thrown up the sponge ? " 

" Yes— kicked the bucket— " 

" Ah — has departed to that mysterious country from whose 
oourne no traveler returns." 

" Return ! I reckon not. Why pard, he's dead ! " 

" Yes, I understand." 

" Oh, you do ? Well I thought maybe you might be get- 
ting tangled some more. Yes, you see he's dead again — " 

" Again f Why, has he ever been dead before ? " 

" Dead before ? No ! Do you reckon a man has got as 
many lives as a cat ? But you bet you he's awful dead now, 
poor old boy, and I wish I'd never seen this day. I don't 
want no better friend than Buck Fanshaw. I knowed him by 
the back ; and when I know a man and like him, I freeze to 
him — you hear me. Take him all round, pard, there never 
was a bullier man in the mines. No man ever knowed Buck 
Fanshaw to go back on a friend. But it's all up, you know, 
it's all up. It ain't no use. They've scooped him." 

" Scooped him ? " 

"Yes — death has. Well, well, well, we've got to give him 
up. Yes indeed. It's a kind of a hard world, after all, ainH 
it % But pard, he was a rustler ! You ought to seen him get 
started once. He was a bully boy with a glass eye ! Just spit 



334 BEGINNING TO SEE. 

in his face and give him room according to his strength, and 
it was just beautiful to see him peel and go in. He was the 
worst son of a thief that ever drawed breath. Pard, he was 
on it ! He was on it bigger than an Injun ! " 

"On it? On what?" 

" On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you un- 
derstand. He didn't give a continental for <mybody. Beg your 
pardon, friend, for coming so near saying a cuss-word — but you 
see I'm on an awful strain, in this palaver, on account of hav- 
ing to cramp down and draw everything so mild. But we've 
got to give him up. There ain't any getting around that, I 
don't reckon. Now if we can get you to help plant him — " 

" Preach the funeral discourse ? Assist at the obsequies ? " 

" Obs'quies is good. Yes. That's it — that's our little 
game. We are going to get the thing up regardless, you 
know. He was always nifty himself, and so you bet you his 
funeral ain't going to be no slouch — solid silver door-plate on 
his coffin, six plumes on the hearse, and a nigger on the box in 
a biled shirt and a plug hat — how's that for high ? And we'll 
take care of you, pard. "We'll fix you all right. There'll be a 
kerridge for you ; and whatever you want, you just 'scape out 
and we'll 'tend to it. We've got a shebang fixed up for you to 
stand behind, in ~No. l's house, and don't you be afraid. Just 
go in and toot your horn, if you don't sell a clam. Put Buck 
through as bully as you can, pard, for anybody that knowed 
him will tell you that he was one of the whitest men that was 
ever in the mines. You can't draw it too strong. He never 
could stand it to see things going wrong. He's done more to 
make this town quiet and peaceable than any man in it. I've 
seen him lick four Greasers in eleven minutes, myself. If a 
thing wanted regulating, he warn't a man to go browsing 
around after somebody to do it, but he would prance in and 
regulate it himself. He warn't a Catholic. Scasely. He was 
down on 'em. His word was, ' ~No Irish need apply ! ' But it 
didn't make no difference about that when it came down to 
what a man's rights was — and so, when some roughs jumped 
the Catholic bone-yard and started in to stake out town-lots 
in it he went for 'em ! And he cleaned 'em, too ! I was there, 
pard, and I seen it myself." 



ALL DOWN BUT NINE." 



335 



" That was very well indeed — at least the impulse was — 
whether the act was strictly defensible or not. Had deceased 




SCOTTY REGULATING MATTERS. 



any religions convictions ? That is to say, did he feel a de- 
pendence upon, or acknowledge allegiance to a higher power % ' 

More reflection. 

" I reckon you've stumped me again, pard. Could you say 
it over once more, and say it slow ? " 

" Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather had he 
ever been connected with any organization sequestered from 
secular concerns and devoted to self-sacrifice in the interests 
of morality % " 

" All down but nine — set 'em up on the other alley, pard." 

" What did I understand you to say ? " 

" Why, you're most too many for me, you know. When 
you get in with your left I hunt grass every time. Every 
time you draw, you fill ; but I don't seem to have any luck. 
Lets have a new deal." 



336 BUCK FANSHAW AS A CITIZEN. 

" How ? Begin again ? " 

« That's it." 

" Very well. Was he a good man, and — " 

" There — I see that ; don't pnt up another chip till I look 
at my hand. A good man, says you ? Pard, it ain't no name 
for it. He was the best man that ever — pard, you would 
have doted on that man. He could lam any galoot of his 
inches in America. It was him that put down the riot last 
election before it got a start ; and everybody said he was the 
only man that could have done it. He waltzed in with a 
spanner in one hand and a trumpet in the other, and sent 
fourteen men home on a shutter in less than three minutes. He 
had that riot all broke up and prevented nice before anybody 
ever got a chance to strike a blow. He was always for peace, 
and he would have peace — he could not stand disturbances. 
Pard, he was a great loss to this town. It would please the 
boys if you could chip in something like that and do him jus- 
tice. Here once when the Micks got to throwing stones 
through the Methodis' Sunday school windows, Buck Fanshaw, 
all of his own notion, shut up his saloon and took a couple of 
six-shooters and mounted guard over the Sunday school. Says 
he, ' No Irish need apply ! ' And they didn't. He was the 
bulliest man in the mountains, pard ! He could run faster, 
jump higher, hit harder, and hold more tangle-foot whisky 
without spilling it than any man in seventeen counties. Put 
that in, pard — it'll please the boys more than anything you 
could say. And you can say, pard, that he never shook his 
mother." 

" Never shook his mother ? " 

" That's it — any of the boys will tell you so." 

" Well, but why should he shake her ? " 

" That's what I say — but some people does." 

" Not people of any repute ? " 

" Well, some that averages pretty so-so." 

" In my opinion the man that would offer personal vio- 
ence to his own mother, ought to — " 

" Cheese it, pard ; you've banked your ball clean outside 
tlie string. What I was a drivin' at, was, that he never 



THE FCJJNEKAL CEREMONIES. 



33' 



throwed off on his mother — don't you see ? No indeedy. He 
give her a house to live in, and town lots, and plenty of money ; 
and he looked after her and took care of h^r all the time ; and 
when she was down with the small-pox I'm d — d if he didn't 
set up nights and nuss her himself! Beg your pardon for say- 
ing it, but 
it hopped 
out too 
quick for 
yours tru- 
ly. You've 
treated me 
like a gen- 
tleman, 
pard, and I 
ain't the 
man to hurt 
your feel- 
ings inten- 
tional. 1 
think you 




DIDN'T SHOOK HIS MOTIIEK. 



're white. 

I think you're a square man, pard. I like you, and I'll lick any 
man that don't. I'll lick him till he can't tell himself from a 
last year's corpse ! Put it there ! " [Another fraternal hand- 
shake — and exit.] 

The obsequies were all that " the boys " could desire. Such 
a marvel of funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The 
plumed hearse, the dirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts 
of business, the flags drooping at half mast, the long, plodding 
procession of uniformed secret societies, military battalions and 
fire companies, draped engines, carriages of officials, and citi- 
zens in vehicles and on foot, attracted multitudes of spectators 
to the sidewalks, roofs and windows ; and for years afterward, 
the degree of grandeur attained by any civic display in Virginia 
was determined by comparison with Buck Fanshaw's funeral. 

Scotty Briggs, as a pall-bearer and a mourner, occupied a 
prominent place at the funeral, and when the sermon was 
22f 



33S 



SCOTTY BECOMES A CHRISTIAN. 



finished and the last sentence of the prayer for the dead man's 
soul ascended, he responded, in a low voice, but with feeling : 
" Amen. No Irish need apply." 

As the bulk of the response was without apparent relevancy, 
it was probably nothing more than a humble tribute to the 
memory of the friend that was gone ; for, as Scotty had once' 
said, it was " his word." 

Scotty Briggs, in after days, achieved the distinction of be- 
coming the only convert to religion that was ever gathered 
from the Virginia roughs ; and it transpired that the man who 
had it in him to espouse the quarrel of the weak out of inborn 
nobility of spirit was no mean timber whereof to construct a 
Christian. The making him one did not warp his generosity 
or diminish his courage ; on the contrary it gave intelligent 

direction to 
the one and 
a broader 
field to the 
other. If 
his Sunday- 
school class 
pro gressed 
faster than 
the other 
classes, was 
it matter for 
wonder ? I 
think not. 
He talked to 

his pioneer small-fry in a language they understood ! It was 
my large privilege, a month before he died, to hear him tell the 
beautiful story of Joseph and his brethren to his class " with- 
out looking at the book." I leave it to the reader to fancy 
what it was like, as it fell, riddled with slang, from the lips of 
that grave, earnest teacher, and was listened to by his little 
learners with a consuming interest that showed that they were 
as unconscious as he was that any violence was being done to 
the sacred proprieties ! 




SCOTTY AS A SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

THE first twenty-six graves in the Virginia cemetery were 
occupied by murdered men. So everybody said, so 
everybody believed, and so they will always say and believe. 
The reason why there was so much slaughtering done, was, 
that in a new mining district the rough element predomi- 
nates, and a person is not respected until he has " killed his 
man." That was the very expression used. 

If an unknown individual arrived, they did not inquire if 
he was capable, honest, industrious, but — had he killed his 
man ? If he had not, he gravitated to his natural and proper 
position, that of a man of small consequence ; if he had, the 
cordiality of his reception was graduated according to the 
number of his dead. It was tedious work struggling up to a 
position of influence with bloodless hands ; but when a man 
came with the blood of half a dozen men on his soul, his worth 
was recognized at once and his acquaintance sought. 

In Nevada, for a time, the lawyer, the editor, the banker, 
the chief desperado, the chief gambler, and the saloon keeper, 
occupied the same level in society, and it was the highest. 
The cheapest and easiest way to become an influential man 
and be looked up to by the community at large, was to stand 
behind a bar, wear a cluster-diamond pin, and sell whisky. I 
am not sure but that the saloon-keeper held a shade higher 
rank than any other member of society. His opinion had 
weight. It was his privilege to say how the elections should 



340 



THE MOST INFLUENTIAL CITIZEN. 



go. No great movement could succeed without the counte- 
nance and direction of the saloon-keepers. It was a high favor 
when the chief saloon-keeper consented to serve in the legis- 
lature or the board of aldermen. Youthful ambition hardly 




THE MAN WHO HAD KILLED A DOZEN. 



aspired so much to the honors of the law, or the army and 
navy as to the dignity of proprietorship in a saloon. 

To be a saloon-keeper and kill a man was to be illustrious. 
Hence the reader will not be surprised to learn that more 
than one man was killed in Nevada under hardly the pretext 
of provocation, so impatient was the slayer to achieve reputa- 
tion and throw off the galling sense of being held in indifferent 



OUR JURY SYSTEM CONSIDERED. 341 

repute by his associates. I knew two youths who tried to 
" kill their men " for no other reason — and got killed them- 
selves for their pains. " There goes the man that killed Bill 
Adams " was higher praise and a sweeter sound in the ears of 
this sort of people than any other speech that admiring lips 
could utter. 

The men who murdered Virginia's original twenty-six 
cemetery-occupants were never punished. Why? Because 
Alfred the Great, when he invented trial by jury, and knew 
that he had admirably framed it to secure justice in his age of 
the world, was not aware that in the nineteenth century the 
condition of things would be so entirely changed that unless 
he rose from the grave and altered the jury plan to meet the 
emergency, it would prove the most ingenious and infallible 
agency for defeating justice that human wisdom could con- 
trive. For how could he imagine that we simpletons' would 
go on using his jury plan after circumstances had stripped it 
of its usefulness, any more than he could imagine that we 
would go on using his candle-clock after we had invented 
chronometers? In his day news could not travel fast, and 
hence he could easily find a jury of honest, intelligent men 
who had not heard of the case they were called to try — but in 
our day of telegraphs and newspapers his plan compels us to 
swear in juries composed of fools and rascals, because the 
system rigidly excludes honest men and men of brains. 

I remember one of those sorrowful farces, in Virginia, 
which we call a jury trial. A noted desperado killed Mr. B., 
a good citizen, in the most wanton and cold-blooded way. 
Of course the papers were frill of it, and all men capable of 
reading, read about it. And of course all men not deaf and 
dumb and idiotic, talked about it. A jury-list was made out, 
and Mr. B. L., a prominent banker and a valued citizen, was 
questioned precisely as he would have been questioned in any 
court in America : 

" Have you heard of this homicide ? " 

" Yes." 

" Have you held conversations upon the subject % " 



342 



SPECIMEN JURORS. 



"Yes." 

" Have you formed or expressed opinions about it ? " 

"Yes." 

"Have you read the newspaper accounts of it ? " 

"Yes." 

" We do not want you." 

A minister, intelligent, esteemed, and greatly respected; 
a merchant of high character and known probity ; a mining 
superintendent of intelligence and unblemished reputation ; a 
quartz mill owner of excellent standing, were all questioned in 
the same way, and all set aside. Each said the public talk and 
the newspaper reports had not so biased his mind but that 
sworn testimony would overthrow his previously formed opin- 
ions and enable him to render a verdict without prejudice and 
in accordance with the facts. But of course such men could 
not be trusted with the case. Ignoramuses alone could mete 
out unsullied justice. 

When the peremptory challenges were all exhausted, a jury 
of twelve men was impaneled — a jury who swore they had 
neither heard, read, talked about nor expressed an opinion 
concerning a murder which the very cattle in the corrals, the 
Indians in the sage-brush and the stones in the streets were 




THE UNPREJUDICED JURY. 



cognizant of! It was a jury composed of two desperadoes, 
two low beer-house politicians, three bar-keepers, two ranchmen 
who could not read, and three dull, stupid, human donkeys ! 



DISABILITY INFLICTED ON INTELLIGENCE. 343 

It actually came out afterward, that one of these latter thought 
that incest and arson were the same thing. 

The verdict rendered by this jury was, Not Guilty. What 
else could one expect ? 

The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, 
and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. It is 
a shame that we must continue to use a worthless system be- 
cause it was good a thousand years ago. In this age, when a 
gentleman of high social standing, intelligence and probity, 
swears that testimony given under solemn oath will outweigh, 
with him, street talk and newspaper reports based upon mere 
hearsay, he is worth a hundred jurymen who will swear to 
their own ignorance and stupidity, and justice would be far 
safer in his hands than in theirs. Why could not the jury law 
be so altered as to give men of brains and honesty an equal 
chance with fools and miscreants? Is it right to show the 
present favoritism to one class of men and inflict a disability 
on another, in a land whose boast is that all its citizens are 
free and equal ? I am a candidate for the legislature. I de- 
sire to tamper with the jury law. I wish to so alter it as to 
put a premium on intelligence and character, and close the 
jury box against idiots, blacklegs, and people who do not read 
newspapers. But no doubt I shall be defeated — every effort 
I make to save the country "misses fire." 

My idea, when I began this chapter, was to say some- 
thing about desperadoism in the "flush times" of Nevada. 
To attempt a portrayal of that era and that land, and leave 
out the blood and carnage, would be like portraying Mormon- 
dom and leaving out polygamy. The desperado stalked the 
streets with a swagger graded according to the number of his 
homicides, and a nod of recognition from him was sufficient 
to make a humble admirer happy for the rest of the day. 
The deference that was paid to a desperado of wide reputa- 
tion, and who "kept his private graveyard," as the phrase 
went, was marked, and cheerfully accorded. When he moved 
along the sidewalk in his excessively long-tailed frock-coat, 
shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty little slouch hat 



su 



DESPERADO ADMIRED, 



tipped over left eye, the small-fry roughs made room for his 
majesty ; when he entered the restaurant, the waiters deserted 
bankers and merchants to overwhelm him with obsequious 

service ; when he 
shouldered his way 
to a bar, the shoul- 
dered parties 
wheeled i n d i g - 
nantly, recognized 
him, and — apolo- 
gized. They got 
a look in return 
that froze their 
marrow, and by 
that time a curled 
and breast-pinned 
bar keeper was 
beaming over the 
counter, proud of 
the established ac- 




A DESPERADO GIVING REFERENCE. 



quaintanceship that 
permitted such a familiar form of speech as : 

"How 're ye, Billy, old fel ? Glad to see you. What'll 
you take — the old thing ? ; ' 

The "old thing" meant his customary drink, of course. 

The best known names in the Territory of Nevada were 
those belonging to these long-tailed heroes of the revolver. 
Orators, Governors, capitalists and leaders of the legislature 
enjoyed a degree of fame, but it seemed local and meagre when 
contrasted with the fame of such men as Sam Brown, Jack 
Williams, Billy Mulligan, Farmer Pease, Sugarfoot Mike, 
Pock-Marked Jake, El Dorado Johnny, Jack MoNTabb, Joe 
McGee, Jack Harris, Six-fingered Pete, etc., etc. There was 
a long list of them. They were brave, reckless men, and 
traveled with their lives in their hands. To give them their 
due, they did their killing principally among themselves, and 



A SPECIMEN CHARACTER. 345 

seldom molested peaceable citizens, for they considered it 
small credit to add to their trophies so cheap a bauble as the 
death of a man who was " not on the shoot," as they phrased 
it. They killed each other on slight provocation, and hoped 
and expected to be killed themselves — for they held it almost 
shame to die otherwise than "with their boots on," as they 
expressed it. 

I remember an instance of a desperado's contempt for such 
small game as a private citizen's life. I was taking a late 
supper in a restaurant one night, with two reporters and a 
little printer named — Brown, for instance — any name will do. 
Presently a stranger with a long-tailed coat on came in, and 
not noticing Brown's hat, which was lying in a chair, sat down 
on it. Little Brown sprang up and became abusive in a 
moment. The stranger smiled, smoothed out the hat, and 
offered it to Brown with profuse apologies couched in caustic 
sarcasm, and begged Brown not to destroy him. Brown threw 
off his coat and challenged the man to fight — abused him, 
threatened him, impeached his courage, and urged and even 
implored him to fight; and in the meantime the smiling 
stranger placed himself under our protection in mock distress. 
But presently he assumed a serious tone, and said : 

"Very well, gentlemen, if we must fight, we must, I sup- 
pose. But don't rush into danger and then say I gave you no 
warning. I am more than a match for all of you when I get 
started. I will give you proofs, and then if my friend here 
still insists, I will try to accommodate him." 

The table we were sitting at was about five feet long, and 
unusually cumbersome and heavy. He asked us to put our 
hands on the dishes and hold them in their places a moment 
— one of them was a large oval dish with a portly roast on it. 
Then he sat down, tilted up one end of the table, set two of 
the legs on his knees, took the end of the table between his 
teeth, took his hands away, and pulled down with his teeth till 
the table came up to a level position, dishes and all ! He said 
he could lift a keg of nails with his teeth. He picked up a 
common glass tumbler and bit a semi-circle out of it. Then 



346 



SATISFACTION WITHOUT FIGHTING. 



he opened his bosom and showed us a net-work of knife and 
bullet scars ; showed us more on his arms and face, and 
said he believed he had bullets enough in his body to make a 




SATISFYING A FOE. 



pig of lead. He was armed to the teeth. He closed with the 

remark that he was Mr. of Cariboo — a celebrated name 

whereat we shook in our shoes. I would publish the name, 
but for the suspicion that he might come and carve me. He 
finally inquired if Brown still thirsted for blood. Brown 
turned the thing over in his mind a moment, and then — asked 
him to supper. 

With the permission of the reader, I will group together, 
in the next chapter, some samples of life in our small moun- 
tain village in the old days of desperadoism. I was there at 
the time. The reader will observe peculiarities in our official 
society ; and he will observe also, an instance of how, in new 
countries, murders breed murders. 



A 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

N extract or two from the newspapers of the day will 
furnish a photograph that can need no embellishment : 



Fatal Shooting Affray. — An affray occurred, last evening, in a billiard 
saloon on C street, between Deputy Marshal Jack Williams and Wm. Brown, 
which reeulted in the immediate death of the latter. There had been some 
difficulty between the parties for several months. 

An inquest was immediately held, and the following testimony adduced : 
Officer Geo. Birdsall, sworn, says : — I was told Wm. Brown was drunk 
and was looking for Jack Williams ; so soon as I heard that I started for the 
parties to prevent a collision ; went into the billiard saloon ; saw Billy Brown 
running around, saying if anybody had anything against him to show cause ; 
he was talking in a boisterous manner, and officer Perry took him to the 
other end of the room to talk to him ; Brown came back to me ; remarked 
to me that he thought he was as good as anybody, and knew how to take 
care of himself ; he passed by me and went to the bar ; don't know whether 
he drank or not ; Williams was at the end of the billiard-table, next to the 
stairway ; Brown, after going to the bar, came back and said he was as good 
as any man in the world ; he had then walked out to the end of the first 
billiard-table from the bar ; I moved closer to them, supposing there would 
be a fight ; as Brown drew his pistol I caught hold of it ; he had fired one 
shot at Williams ; don't know the effect of it ; caught hold of him with one 
hand, and took hold of the pistol and turned it up ; think he fired once after 
I caught hold of the pistol ; I wrenched the pistol from him ; walked to the 
end of the billiard-table and told a party that I had Brown's pistol, and to 
stop shooting ; I think four shots were fired in all ; after walking out, Mr. 
Foster remarked that Brown was shot dead. 

Oh, there was no excitement about it — he merely "re- 
marked " the small circumstance ! 

Four months later the following item appeared in the same 
paper (the Enterprise). In this item the name of one of the 



'34$ A SPECIMEN CITY OFFICIAL. 

city officers above referred to {Deputy Marshal Jack Wil* 
liums) occurs again : 

Robbery and Desperate Affray. — On Tuesday night, a German named 
Charles Hurtzal, engineer in a mill at Silver City, came to this place, and 
visited the hurdy-gurdy house on B street. The music, dancing and Teu- 
tonic maidens awakened memories of Faderland until our German friend 
was carried away with rapture. He evidently had money, and was spend- 
ing it freely. Late in the evening Jack Williams and Andy Blessington 
invited him down stairs to take a cup of coffee. Williams proposed a game 
of cards and went up stairs to procure a deck, but not finding any returned. 
On the stairway he met the German, and drawing his pistol knocked him 
down and rifled his pockets of some seventy dollars. Hurtzal dared give 
no alarm, as he was told, with a pistol at his head, if he made any noise or 
exposed them, they would blow his brains out. So effectually was he 
frightened that he made no complaint, until his friends forced him. Tester* 
day a warrant was issued, but the culprits had disappeared. 

This efficient city officer, Jack "Williams, had the common 
reputation of being a burglar, a highwayman and a desperado. 
It was said that he had several times drawn his revolver and 
levied money contributions on citizens at dead of night in the 
public streets of Virginia. 

Five months after the above item appeared, Williams was 
assassinated while sitting at a card table one night ; a gun was 
thrust through the crack of the door and Williams dropped 
from his chair riddled with balls. It was said, at the time, 
that Williams had been for some time aware that a party 
of his own sort (desperadoes) had sworn away his life ; and 
it was generally believed among the people that Williams's 
friends and enemies would make the assassination memorable — 
and useful, too — by a wholesale destruction of each other.* 

* However, one prophecy was verified, at any rate. It was asserted by 
the desperadoes that one of their brethren (Joe McGee, a special policeman) 
was known to be the conspirator chosen by lot to assassinate Williams ; and 
they also asserted that doom had been pronounced against McGee, and that 
he would be assassinated in exactly the same manner that had been adopted 
for the destruction of Williams — a prophecy which came true a year later. 
After twelve months of distress (for McGee saw a fancied assassin in every 
man that approached him), he made the last of many efforts to get out of 
the country unwatched. He went to Carson and sat down in a saloon to 
wait for the stage — it would leave at four in the morning. But as the night 



PURSUING A VICTIM. 349 

It did not so happen, but still, times were not dull during the 
next twent y-four hours, for within that time a woman was killed 
by a pistol shot, a man was brained with a slung shot, and a 
man named Reeder was also disposed of permanently. Some 
matters in the Enterprise account of the killing of Reeder are 
worth noting — especially the accommodating complaisance of a 
Virginia justice of the peace. The italics in the following nar- 
rative are mine : 

More Cutting and Shooting. — The devil seems to have again broken 
loose in our town. Pistols and guns explode and knives gleam in our streets 
as in early times. When there has been a long season of quiet, people are 
slow to wet their hands in blood; but once blood is spilled, cutting and 
shooting come easy. Night before last Jack Williams was assassinated, 
and yesterday forenoon we had more bloody work, growing out of the kill- 
ing of Williams, and on the same street in which he met his death. It 
appears that Tom Reeder, a friend of Williams, and George Gumbert were 
talking, at the meat market of the latter, about the killing of Williams the 
previous night, when Reeder said it was a most cowardly act to shoot a man 
in such a way, giving him " no show." Gumbert said that Williams had 
" as good a show as he gave Billy Brown," meaning the man killed by Wil- 
liams last March. Reeder said it was a d — d lie, that Williams had no show 
at all. At this, Gumbert drew a knife and stabbed Reeder, cutting him in 
two places in the back. One stroke of the knife cut into the sleeve of 
Reeder's coat and passed downward in a slanting direction through his 
elothing, and entered his body at the small of the back ; another blow 
struck more squarely, and made a much more dangerous wound. Gumbert 
gave himself up to the officers of j ustice, and was shortly after discharged 
by Justice Atwill, on his own recognizance, to appear for trial at six o'clock 
in the evening. In the meantime Reeder had been taken into the office of 
Dr. Owens, where his wounds were properly dressed. One of his wounds was 
considered quite dangerous, and it was thought by many that it would prove 

waned and the crowd thinned, he grew uneasy, and told the bar-keeper that 
assassins were on his track. The bar-keeper told him to stay in the middle 
of the room, then, and not go near the door, or the window by the stove. 
But a fatal fascination seduced him to the neighborhood of the stove every 
now and then, and repeatedly the bar-keeper brought him back to the middle 
of the room and warned him to remain there. But he could not. At three in 
the morning he again returned to the stove and sat down by a stranger. Be- 
fore the bar-keeper could get to him with another warning whisper, some 
one outside fired through the window and riddled McGee's breast with 
slugs, killing him almost instantly. By the same discharge the stranger at 
McGee's side also received attentions which proved fatal in the course ot 
two or three days. 



350 A STREET FIGHT. 

fatal. But "being considerably under the influence of liquor, Reeder did not 
feel his wounds as he other noise would, and he got up and went into the street. 
He went to the meat market and renewed his quarrel with Gumbert, threat- 
ening his life. Friends tried to interfere to put a stop to the quarrel and 
get the parties away from each other. In the Fashion Saloon Reeder made 
threats against the life of Gumbert, saying he would kill him, and it is 
said that he requested the officers not to arrest Gumbert, as he intended to kill 
him. After these threats Gumbert went off and procured a double-barreled 
shot gun, loaded with buck-shot or revolver balls, and went after Reeder. 
Two or three persons were assisting him along the street, trying to get him 
home, and had him just in front of the store of Klopstock & Harris, when 
Gumbert came across toward him from the opposite side of the street with 
his gun. He came up within about ten or fifteen feet of Reeder, and called out 
to those with him to " look out ! get out of the way ! " and they had. only time to 
heed the warning, when he fired. Reeder was at the time attempting to screen 
himself behind a large cask, whieh stood against the awning post of Klop- 
stock & Harris's store, but some of the balls took effect in the lower part of 
his breast, and he reeled around forward and fell in front of the cask. Gum- 
bert then raised his gun and fired the second barrel, which missed Reeder 
and entered the ground. At the time that this occurred, there were a great 
many persons on the street in the vicinity, and a number of them called out 
to Gumbert, when they saw him raise his gun, to " hold on," and " don't 
shoot ! " The cutting took place about ten o'clock and the shooting about 
twelve. After the shooting the street was instantly crowded with the in- 
habitants of that part of the town, some appearing much excited and laugh' 
ing — declaring that it looked like the " good old times of '60." Marshal 
Perry and officer Birdsall were near when the shooting occurred, and Gum- 
bert was immediately arrested and his gun taken from him, when he was 
marched off to jail. Many persons who were attracted to the spot where this 
bloody work had just taken place, looked bewildered and seemed to be asking 
themselves what was to happen next, appearing in doubt as to whether the 
killing mania had reached its climax, or whether w.e were to turn in and 
have a grand killing spell, shooting whoever might have given us offence. 
It was whispered around that it was not all over yet — five or six more were 
to be killed before night. Reeder was taken to the Virginia City Hotel, 
and doctors called in to examine his wounds. They found that two or three 
balls had entered his right side ; one of them appeared to have passed 
through the substance of the lungs, while another passed into the liver. 
Two balls were also found to have struck one of his legs. As some of the 
balls struck the cask, the wounds in Reeder's leg were probably from these, 
glancing downwards, though they might have been caused by the second 
shot fired. After being shot, Reeder said when he got on his feet — smiling 
as he spoke — " It will take better shooting than that to kill me." The doc- 
tors consider it almost impossible for him to recover, but as he has an 
excellent constitution he may survive, notwithstanding the number and 
dangerous character of the wounds he has received. The town appears to 



LIKELIHOOD OF PUNISHMENT. 



351 



be perfectly quiet at present, as though the late stormy times had cleared 
our moral atmosphere ; but who can tell in what quarter clouds are lowering 
or plots ripening ? 

Reeder — or at least what was left of him — survived his 
wounds two days ! Nothing was ever done with Gumbert. 

Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not 
know what a palladium is, having never seen a palladium, but 
it is a good thing no doubt at any rate. Not less than a hun- 
dred men have been murdered in Nevada — perhaps I would 
be within bounds if I said three hundred — and as far as I can 
learn, only two persons have suffered the death penalty there. 
However, four or five who had no money and no political influ- 
ence have been punished by imprisonment — one languished in 
prison as much as eight months, I think. However, I do not 
desire to be extravagant — it may have been less. 




CHAPTEB L. 

THESE murder and jury statistics remind me of a certain 
very extraordinary trial and execution of twenty years 
ago ; it is a scrap of history familiar to all old Californians, 
and worthy to be known by other peoples of the earth that 
love simple, straightforward justice unencumbered with non- 
sense. I would apologize for this digression but for the fact 
that the information I am about to offer is apology enough in 
itself. And since I digress constantly anyhow, perhaps it is 
as well to eschew apologies altogether and thus prevent their 
growing irksome. 

Capt. Ned Blakely — that name will answer as well as any 
other fictitious one (for he was still with the living at last ac- 
counts, and may not desire to be famous) — sailed ships out of 
the harbor of San Francisco for many years. He was a stal- 
wart, warm-hearted, eagle-eyed veteran, who had been a sailor 
nearly fifty years — a sailor from early boyhood. He was a 
rough, honest creature, full of pluck, and just as full of hard- 
headed simplicity, too. He hated trifling conventionalities — • 
" business " was the word, with him. He had all a sailor's 
vindictiveness against the quips and quirks of the law, and 
steadfastly believed that the first and last aim and object of the 
law and lawyers was to defeat justice. 

He sailed for the Chincha Islands in command of a guano 
ship. He had a fine crew, but his negro mate was his pet — 
on him he had for years lavished his admiration and esteem. 
It was Capt. Ned's first voyage to the Chinchas, but his fame 
had gone before him — the fame of being a man who would 



CAPT. NED BLAKELY. 



353 



fight at the dropping of a handkerchief, when imposed upon, 
and would stand no nonsense. It was a fame well earned. 
Arrived in the islands, he found that the staple of conversation 
was the exploits of one Bill Noakes, a bully, the mate of a 
trading ship. This man had created a small reign of terror 
there. At nine o'clock at night, Capt. Ned, all alone, was 
pacing his deck in the starlight. A form ascended the side, 
and approached him. Capt. Ned said : 

" "Who goes there ? " 

" I'm Bill Noakes, the best man in the islands." 

" What do you want aboard this ship ? " 




IMPARTING INFORMATION. 



"I've heard of Capt. Ned Blakely, and one of us is a better 
man than 'tother — I'll know which, before I go ashore." 

"You've come to the right shop — I'm your man. I'll 
learn you to come aboard this ship without an mvite." 

He seized Noakes, backed him against the mainmast, 
pounded his face to a pulp, and then threw him overboard. 
23f 



354 KILLING OF HIS MATE. 

Noakes was not convinced. He returned the next night, 
got the pulp renewed, and went overboard head first, as before. 
He was satisfied. 

A week after this, while Noakes was carousing with a sailor 
crowd on shore, at noonday, Capt. Ned's colored mate came 
along, and Noakes tried to pick a quarrel with him. The 
negro evaded the trap, and tried to get away. Noakes fol- 
lowed him up ; the negro began to run ; Noakes fired on him 
with a revolver and killed him. Half a dozen sea-captains 
witnessed the whole affair. Noakes retreated to the small 
after-cabin of his ship, with two other bullies, and gave out 
that death would be the portion of any man that intruded 
there. There was no attempt made to follow the villains ; 
there was no disposition to do it, and indeed very little thought 
of such an enterprise. There were no courts and no officers ; 
there was no government ; the islands belonged to Peru, and 
Peru was far away; she had no official representative on the 
ground ; and neither had any other nation. 

However, Capt. Ned was not perplexing his head about 
such things. They concerned him not. He was boiling with 
rage and furious for justice. At nine o'clock at night he 
loaded a double-barreled gun with slugs, fished out a pair of 
handcuffs, got a ship's lantern, summoned his quartermaster, 
and went ashore. He said : 

" Do you see that ship there at the dock?" 

"Ay-ay, sir." 

" It's the Yenus." 

"Ay-ay, sir." 

" You — you know meP 

" Ay-ay, sir." 

" Yery well, then. Take the lantern. Carry it just under 
your chin. I'll walk behind you and rest this gun-barrel on 
your shoulder, p'inting forward — so. Keep your lantern well 
up, so's I can see things ahead of you good. I'm going to march 
in on Noakes — and take him — and jug the other chaps. If 
you flinch — well, you know rne? 

"Ay-ay, sir." 



ARRESTING BILL NOAKES. 



355 



In tins order they tiled aboard softly, arrived at Noakes's 
den, the quartermaster pushed the door open, and the lantern 
revealed the three desperadoes sitting on the floor. Capt. 
Ned said : 

"I'm Ned Blakely. I've got you under fire. Don't you 




A WALKING BATTERY. 



move without orders — any of you. You two kneel down in the 
corner ; faces to the wall — now. Bill Noakes, put these hand- 
cuffs on ; now ^pme up close. Quartermaster, fasten 'em. All 
right. Don't stir, sir. Quartermaster, put the key in the out- 
side of the door. Now, men, I'm going to lock you two in ; 
and if you try to burst through this door — well, you've heard 
of me. Bill Noakes, fall in ahead, and march. All set. 
Quartermaster, lock the door." 

Noakes spent the night on board Blakely's ship, a prisoner 
under strict guard. Early in the morning Capt. Ned called in 
all the sea-captains in the harbor and invited them, with nauti- 
cal ceremony, to be present on board his ship at nine o'clock to 
witness the hanging of Noakes at the yard-arm ! 



356 CAPT. BLAKELY'S VIEWS OF JUSTICE. 

" What ! The man has not been tried." 

" Of course he hasn't. But didn't he kill the nigger ? " 

" Certainly he did ; but you are not thinking of hanging 
him without a trial ? " 

" Trial! What do I want to try him for, if he killed the 
nigger ? " 

" Oh, Capt. Ned, this will never do. Think how it will 
sound." 

" Sound be hanged ! DidnH he hill the nigger f " 

" Certainly, certainly, Capt. Ned, — nobody denies that, — 
but—" 

" Then I'm going to hang him, that's all. Everybody I've 
talked to talks just the same way you do. Everybody says he 
killed the nigger, everybody knows he killed the nigger, and yet 
every lubber of you wants him tried for it. I don't understand 
such bloody foolishness as that. Tried I Mind you, I don't 
object to trying him, if it's got to be done to give satisfaction ; 
and I'll be there, and chip in and help, too ; but put it off till 
afternoon — put it off till afternoon, for I'll have my hands 
middling full till after the burying — " 

" Why, what do you mean ? Are you going to hang him 
any how — and try him afterward ? " 

" Didn't I say I was going to hang him ? I never saw 
such people as you. What's the difference ? You ask a favor, 
and then you ain't satisfied when you get it. Before or after 's 
all one — you know how the trial will go. He killed the 
nigger. Say — I must be going. If your mate would like to 
come to the hanging, fetch him along. I like him." 

There was a stir in the camp. The captains came in a 
body and pleaded with Capt. Ned not to do this rash thing. 
They promised that they would create a court composed of 
captains of the best character ; they would empanel a jury ; 
they would conduct everything in a way becoming the serious 
nature of the business in hand, and give the case an impartial 
hearing and the accused a fair trial. And they said it would 
be murder, and punishable by the American courts if he per- 
sisted and hung the accused on his ship. They pleaded hard. 
Capt. Ned said : 



BILL NOAKES IS TRIED. 357 

" Gentlemen, I'm not stubborn and I'm not unreasonable. 
I'm always willing to do just as near right as I can. How 
long will it take ? " 

" Probably only a little while." 

" And can I take him up the shore and hang him as soon 
*s you are done ? " 

"If he is proven guilty he shall be haDged without un- 
necessary delay." 

" If he's proven guilty. Great Neptune, ain't he guilty ? 
This beats my time. "Why you all know he's guilty." 

But at last they satisfied him that they were projecting 
nothing underhanded. Then he said : 

" Well, all right. You go on and try him and I'll go down 
and overhaul his conscience and prepare him to go — like 
enough he needs it, and I don't want to send him off without 
a show for hereafter." 

This was another obstacle. They finally convinced him 
that it was necessary to have the accused in court. Then they 
said they would send a guard to bring him. 

" No, sir, I prefer to fetch him myself — he don't get out of 
my hands. Besides, I've got to go to the ship to get a rope, 
anyway." 

The court assembled with due ceremony, empaneled a jury, 
and presently Capt. Ned entered, leading the prisoner with 
one hand and carrying a Bible and a rope in the other. He 
seated himself by the side of his captive and told the court to 
" up anchor and make sail." Then he turned a searching eye 
on the jury, and detected Noakes's friends, the two bullies. 
He strode over and said to them confidentially : 

" You're here to interfere, you see. Now you vote right, 
do you hear? — or else there '11 be a double-barreled inquest 
here when this trial's off, and your remainders will go home 
in a couple of baskets." 

The caution was not without fruit. The jury was a unit 
—the verdict, " Guilty." 

Capt. Ned sprung to his feet and said : 

"Come along — you're my meat now, my lad, anyway. 



35S 



CAPT. BLAKELY AS A CHAPLAIN. 



Gentlemen you've done yourselves proud. I invite you all to 
come and see that I do it all straight. Follow me to the 
canyon, a mile above here." 

The court informed him that a sheriff had been appointed 
to do the hanging, and — 

Capt. Ned's patience was at an end. His wrath was 
boundless. The subject of a sheriff was judiciously dropped. 

When the crowd arrived at the canyon, Capt. Ned climbed 
a tree and arranged the halter, then came down and noosed his 
man. He opened his Bible, and laid aside his hat. Selecting 
a chapter at random, he read it through, in a deep bass voice 

and with sincere 




solemnity, 
said : . 
" Lad, 



Then he 



you 



are 



about to go aloft and 



OVERHAULING HIS MANIFEST 



pausing, from time to 



give an account of 
yourself ; and the 
lighter a man's man- 
ifest is, as far as sin's 
concerned, the better 
for him. Make a 
clean breast, man, 
and carry a log with 
you that'll bear in- 
spection. You killed 
the nigger ? " 

No reply. A 
long pause. 

The captain read 

another chapter, 

time, to impress the effect. Then 



he talked an earnest, persuasive sermon to him, and ended 
by repeating the question : 

" Did you kill the nigger ? " 

No reply — other than a malignant scowl. The captain 
now read the first and second chapters of Genesis, with deep 



HE HANGS THE CKIMINAL. 35k 

feeling— paused a moment, closed the book reverently, and 
said with a perceptible savor of satisfaction : 

" There. Four chapters. There's few that would have 
took the pains with you that I have." 

Then he swung up the condemned, and made the rope fast ; 
stood by and timed him half an hour with his watch, and then 
delivered the body to the court. A little after, as he stood 
contemplating the motionless figure, a doubt came into his 
face ; evidently he felt a twinge of conscience — a misgiving — 
and he said with a sigh : 

" Well, p'raps I ought to burnt him, maybe. But I was 
trying to do for the best." 

When the history of this aifair reached California (it was 
in the " early days") it made a deal of talk, but did not di- 
minish the captain's popularity in any degree. It increased it, 
indeed. California had a population then that " inflicted " jus- 
tice after a fashion that was simplicity and primitiveness itself, 
and could therefore admire appreciatively when the same 
fashion was followed elsewhere. 




OHAPTEE LI. 

YICE flourished luxuriantly during the hey-day of our 
" flush times." The saloons were overburdened with 
eustom ; so were the police courts, the gambling dens, the 
brothels and the jails — unfailing signs of high prosperity in a 
mining region — in any region for that matter. Is it not so ? 
A crowded police court docket is the surest of all signs 
that trade is brisk and money plenty. Still, there is one other 
sign ; it comes last, but when it does come it establishes be- 
yond cavil that the " flush times " are at the flood. This is the 
birth of the "literary" paper. The Weekly Occidental, "de- 
voted to literature," made its appearance in Virginia. All the 
literary people were engaged to write for it. Mr. F. was to 
edit it. He was a felicitous skirmisher with a pen, and a man 
who could say happy things in a crisp, neat way. Once, while 
editor of the Union, he had disposed of a labored, incoherent, 
two-column attack made upon him by a cotemporary, with a 
single line, which, at first glance, seemed to contain a solemn 
and tremendous compliment — viz. : " The logic of our ad- 
versary resembles the peace of God," — and left it to the 
reader's memory and after-thought to invest the remark with 
another and " more different " meaning by supplying for him- 
self and at his own leisure the rest of the Scripture — "m that 
it passeth understanding" He once said of a little, half- 
starved, wayside community that had no subsistence except 
what they could get by preying upon chance passengers who 
stopped over with them a day when traveling by the overland 
stage, that in their Church service they had altered the Lord's 
Prayer to read : " Give us this dav our daily stranger ! " 



THE OCCIDENTAL'S GREAT NOVEL. 



361 



We expected great things of the Occidental. Of course it 
could not get along without an original novel, and so we made 
arrangements to hurl into the work the full strength of the 
company. Mrs. F. was an able romancist of the ineffable 
school — I know no other name to apply to a school whose 
heroes are all dainty and all perfect. She wrote the opening 
chapter, and introduced a lovely blonde simpleton who talked 
nothing but pearls and poetry and who was virtuous to the 
verge of eccentricity. She also introduced a young French 
Duke of aggravated refinement, in love with the blonde. 
Mr. F. followed next week, with a brilliant lawyer who set 
about getting the Duke's estates into trouble, and a sparkling 
young lady of high society who fell to fascinating the Duke 
and impairing the appetite of the blonde. Mr. D., a dark and 
bloody editor of one of the dailies, followed Mr. F., the third 




THE HEROES AND HEROINES OF THE STORY. 

week, introducing a mysterious Roscicrucian who transmuted 
metals, held consultations with the devil in a cave at dead of 
night, and cast the horoscope of the several heroes and heroines 
in such a way as to provide plenty of trouble for their future 
careers and breed a solemn and awful public interest in the 
novel. He also introduced a cloaked and masked melodra- 



362 SUMMARY TREATMENT OF ITS CHARACTERS. 



matic miscreant, put him on a salary and set him on the mid- 
night tract of the Duke with a poisoned dagger. He also 
created an Irish coachman with a rich brogue and placed him 
in the service of the society-young-lady with an ulterior mis- 
sion to carry billet-doux to the Duke. 

About this time there arrived in Virginia a dissolute stran- 
ger with a literary turn of mind — rather seedy he was, but 
very quiet and unassuming ; almost diffident, indeed. He was 
so gentle, and his manners were so pleasing and kindly, 
whether he was sober or intoxicated, that he made friends of 

all who came in contact with 
him. He applied for literary 
work, offered conclusive ev- 
idence that he wielded an 
easy and practiced pen, and 
so Mr. F. engaged him at 
once to help write the novel. 
His chapter was to follow 
Mr. D.'s, and mine was to 
come next. Now what does 
this fellow do but go off and 
get drunk and then proceed 
to his quarters and set to 
work with his imagination 
in a state of chaos, and that 
chaos in a condition of ex- 
travagant activity. The re- 
sult may be guessed. He 
scanned the chapters of his 
predecessors, found plenty 
of heroes and heroines al- 
ready created, and was satisfied with them ; he decided to in- 
troduce no more ; with all the confidence that whisky inspires 
and all the easy complacency it gives to its servant, he then 
launched himself lovingly into his work : he married the 
coachman to the society -young-lady for the sake of the scandal ; 
married the Duke to the blonde's stepmother, for the sake of 
the sensation ; stopped the desperado's salary ; created a mis- 




DISSOLUTE AUTHOR. 



WAR AMONG THE NOVELISTS. 363 

understanding between the devil and the Roscicrucian ; threw 
the Duke's property into the wicked lawyer's hands ; made the 
lawyer's upbraiding conscience drive him to drink, thence to 
delirium tremens, thence to suicide; broke the coachman's 
neck ; let his widow succumb to contumely, neglect, poverty 
and consumption ; caused the blonde to drown herself, leaving 
her clothes on the bank with the customary note pinned to 
them forgiving the Duke and hoping he would be happy ; re- 
vealed to the Duke, by means of the usual strawberry mark 
on left arm, that he had married his own long-lost mother and 
destroyed his long-lost sister ; instituted the proper and neces- 
sary suicide of the Duke and the Duchess in order to compass 
poetical justice; opened the earth and let the Roscicrucian 
through, accompanied with the accustomed smoke and thunder 
and smell of brimstone, and finished with the promise that in 
the next chapter, after holding a general inquest, he would take 
up the surviving character of the novel and tell what became 
of the devil ! 

It read with singular smoothness, and with a "dead" 
earnestness that was funny enough to suffocate a body. 
But there was war when it came in. The other novelists 
were furious. The mild stranger, not yet more than 
half sober, stood there, under a scathing fire of vitupera- 
tion, meek and bewildered, looking from one to another of his 
assailants, and wondering what he could have done to invoke 
such a storm. When a lull came at last, he said his say gently 
and appealingly — said he did not rightly remember what he 
had written, but was sure he had tried to do the best he 
could, and knew his object had been to make the novel not 
only pleasant and plausible but instructive and — 

The bombardment began again. The novelists assailed his 
ill-chosen adjectives and demolished them with a storm of 
denunciation and ridicule. And so the siege went on. Every 
time the stranger tried to appease the enemy he only made 
matters worse. Finally he offered to rewrite the chapter. 
This arrested hostilities. The indignation gradually quieted 
down, peace reigned again and the sufferer retired in safety 
and got him to his own citadel. 



36± THE DISSOLUTE AU'/HOR'S SECOND EFFORT. 

But on the way thither the evil angel tempted him and he 
got drunk again. And again his imagination went mad. He led 
the heroes and heroines a wilder dance than ever ; and yet all 
through it ran that same convincing air of honesty and earnest- 
ness that had marked his first work. He got the characters 
into the most extraordinary situations, put them through the 
most surprising performances, and made them talk the strangest 
talk ! But the chapter cannot be described. It was symmet- 
rically crazy ; it was artistically absurd ; and it had explana- 
tory footnotes that were fully as curious as the text. I remember 
one of the " situations," and will offer it as an example of the 
whole. He altered the character of the brilliant lawyer, and 
made him a great-hearted, splendid fellow ; gave him fame and 
riches, and set his age at thirty-three years. Then he made 
the blonde discover, through the help of the Roscicrucian and 
the melodramatic miscreant, that while the Duke loved her 
money ardently and wanted it, he secretly felt a sort of lean* 
ing toward the society-young-lady. Stung to the quick, she 
tore her affections from him and bestowed them with tenfold 
power upon the lawyer, who responded with consuming zeal. 
But the parents would none of it. What they wanted in the 
family was a Duke ; and a Duke they were determined to have ; 
though they confessed that next to the Duke the lawyer had 
their preference. Necessarily the blonde now went into a de- 
cline. The parents were alarmed. They pleaded with her to 
marry the Duke, but she steadfastly refused, and pined on. 
Then they laid a plan. They told her to wait a year and a 
day, and if at the end of that time she still felt that she could 
not marry the Duke, she might marry the lawyer with their 
full consent. The result was as they had foreseen : gladness 
came again, and the flush of returning health. Then the 
parents took the next step in their scheme. They had the 
family physician recommend a long sea voyage and much land 
travel for the thorough restoration of the blonde's strength ; 
and they invited the Duke to be of the party. They judged 
that the Duke's constant presence and the lawyer's protracted 
absence would do the rest — for they did not invite the lawyer. 

So they set sail in a steamer for America — and the third 



HEROES AND HEROINES GENERALLY MIXED. 365 

day out, when their sea-sickness called truce and permitted 
them to take their first meal at the public table, behold there 
sat the lawyer ! The Duke and party made the best of an 




UNLOOKED-FOR APPEARANCE OF THE LAWYER. 

awkward situation ; the voyage progressed, and the vessel neared 
America. But, by and by, two hundred miles off New Bed- 
ford, the ship took fire ; she burned to the water's edge ; of all 
her crew and passengers, only thirty were saved. They floated 
about the sea half an afternoon and all night long. Among 
them were our friends. The lawyer, by superhuman exertions, 
had saved the blonde and her parents, swimming back and forth 
two hundred yards and bringing one each time — (the girl first). 
The Duke had saved himself. In the morning two whale 
ships arrived on the scene and sent their boats. The weather 
was stormy and the embarkation was attended with much 
eonfusion and excitement. The lawyer did his duty like a 
man ; helped his exhausted and insensible blonde, her parents 
and some others into a boat (the Duke helped himself in) ; then 
a child fell overboard at the other end of the raft and the law- 
yer rushed thither and helped half a dozen people fish it out, 
under the stimulus of its mother's screams. Then he ran back 
— a few seconds too late — the blonde's boat was under way. So 



366 



FAITHFUL LOVERS PARTED AGAIN. 



lie had to take the other boat, and go to the other ship. The 
storm increased and drove the vessels out of si^ht of each other 




THE STORM INCREASED. 



— drove them whither it would. "When it calmed, at the end 
of three days, the blonde's ship was seven hundred miles north 
of Boston and the other about seven hundred south of that 
port. The blonde's captain was bound on a whaling cruise 
in the North Atlantic and could not go back such a distance 
or make a port without orders ; such being nautical law. The 
lawyer's captain was to cruise in the North Pacific, and he 
could not go back or make a port without orders. All the law- 
yer's money and baggage were in the blonde's boat and went 
to the blonde's ship — so his captain made him work his passage 
as a common sailor. When both ships had been cruising nearly 
a year, the one was off the coast of Greenland and the other in 



A LONG FISH STORY. 



367 



Behring's Strait. The blonde had long ago been well-nigh 
persuaded that her lawyer had been washed overboard and 
lost just before the whale ships reached the raft, and now, 
under the pleadings of her parents and the Duke she was at 
last beginning to nerve herself for the doom of the covenant, 




JONAH OUTDONE. 



and prepare for the hated marriage. But she would not yield 
a day before the date set. The weeks dragged on, the 
time narrowed, orders were given to deck the ship for the 
wedding — a wedding at sea among icebergs and walruses. 
Five days more and all would be over. So the blonde 
reflected, with a sigh and a tear. Oh where was her true love 
— and why, why did he not come and save her ? At that mo- 
ment he was lifting his harpoon to strike a whale in Behring's 
Strait, five thousand miles away, by the way of the Arctic 
Ocean, or twenty thousand by the way of the Horn — that was 
the reason. He struck, but not with perfect aim — his foot 
slipped and he fell in the whale's mouth and went down his 



36S SAD FATE OF THE OCCIDENTAL. 

throat. He was insensible five days. Then he came to him- 
self and heard voices ; daylight was streaming through a hole 
cut in the whale's roof. He climbed out and astonished the 
sailors who were hoisting blubber up a ship's side. He rec- 
ognized the vessel, flew aboard, surprised the wedding party 
at the altar and exclaimed : 

" Stop the proceedings — I'm here ! Come to my arms, my 
own ! " 

There were foot-notes to this extravagant piece of literature 

wherein the author endeavored to show that the whole thing 

was within the possibilities ; he said he got the incident of the 

whale traveling from Behring's Strait to the coast of Green- 
es o 

land, five thousand miles in five days, through the Arctic Ocean, 
from Charles Keade's " Love Me Little Love Me Long," and 
considered that that established the fact that the thing could 
be done ; and he instanced Jonah's adventure as proof that a 
man could live in a whale's belly, and added that if a preacher 
could stand it three days a lawyer could surely stand it five ! 

There was a fiercer storm than ever in the editorial sanctum 
now, and the stranger was peremptorily discharged, and his 
manuscript flung at his head. But he had already delayed things 
so much that there was not time for some one else to rewrite 
the chapter, and so the paper came out without any novel in it. 
It was but a feeble, struggling, stupid journal, and the absence 
of the novel probably shook public confidence; at any rate, 
before the first side of the next issue went to press, the Weekly 
Occidental died as peacefully as an infant. 

An eifort was made to resurrect it, with the proposed advan- 
tage of a telling new title, and Mr. F. said that The Phenix 
would be just the name for it, because it would give the idea 
of a resurrection from its dead ashes in a new and undreamed 
of condition of splendor ; but some low-priced smarty on one 
of the dailies suggested that we call it the Lazarus ; and inas- 
much as the people were not profound in Scriptural matters 
but thought the resurrected Lazarus and the dilapidated men- 
dicant that begged in the rich man's gateway were one and the 
same person, the name became the laughing stock of the town, 
end killed the paper for good and all. 



MY UNPRINTED POEM. 369 

I was sorry enough, for I was very proud of being con- 
nected with a literary paper — prouder than I have ever been 
of anything since, perhaps. I had written some rhymes for it — 
poetry I considered it — and it was a great grief to me that the 
production was on the "first side" of the issue that was not 
completed, and hence did not see the light. But time brings 
its revenges — I can put it in here ; it will answer in place of 
a tear dropped to the memory of the lost Occidental. The 
idea (not the chief idea, but the vehicle that bears it) was 
probably suggested by the old song called " The Raging 
Canal," but I cannot remember now. I do remember, though, 
that at that time I thought my doggerel was one of the ablest 
poems of the age : 

THE AGED PILOT MAN. 

On the Erie Canal, it was, 

All on a summer's day, 
I sailed forth with my parents 

Far away to Albany. 

From out the clouds at noon that day 

There came a dreadful storm, 
That piled the billows high about, 

And filled us with alarm. 

A man came rushing from a house, 
Saying, " Snub up * your boat I pray, 

Snub up your boat, snub up, alas, * 

Snub up while yet you may." 

Our captain cast one glance astern, 

Then forward glanced he, 
And said, " My wife and little ones 

I never more shall see." 

Said Dollinger the pilot man, 
In noble words, but few, — 
"Fear not, but lean on Dollinger, 
And he will fetch you through." 

* The customary canal technicality for " tie np.* 

24f 



3T0 



A TERRIBLE STORM. 



The boat drove on, the frightened mules 
Tore through the rain and wind, 

And bravely still, in danger's post, 
The whip-boy strode behind. 

" Come 'board, come 'board," the captain cried, 
" Nor tempt so wild a storm ; " 
But still the raging mules advanced, 
Anr 1 still the boy strode on. 

Then said the captain to us all, 

" Alas, 'tis plain to me, 
The greater danger is not there, 

But here upon the sea. 

So let us strive, while life remains, 

To save all souls on board, 
And then if die at last we must, 

Let .... I cannot speak the word ! " 




DOLLIXGER. 



Said Dollinger the pilot man, 
Tow'ring above the crew, 



THE GALE INCREASES. 



371 



" Fear not, but trust in Dollinger, 
And he will fetch you through." 

w Low bridge ! low bridge ! " all heads went down, 

The laboring bark sped on ; 
A mill we passed, we passed a church, 

Hamlets, and fields of corn ; 
And all the world came out to see, 

And chased along the shore 




LOW BRIDGE.' 



Crying, " Alas, alas, the sheeted rain, 
The wind, the tempest's roar ! 

Alas, the gallant ship and crew, 
Can nothing help them more ? " 



And from our deck sad eyes looked out 

Across the stormy scene : 
The tossing wake of billows aft, 

The bending forests green, 



372 



SHORTENING SAIL. 



The chickens sheltered under carts 

In lee of barn the cows, 
The skurrying swine with straw in mouth. 

The wild spray from our bows ! 

" She balances ! 
She wavers ! 
Now let her go about ! 

If she misses stays and broaches to, 
We're ail " — [then with a shout,] 
" Huray ! huray ! 
Avast ! belay ! 
Take in more' sail ! 
Lord, what a gale ! 
Ho, boy, haul taut on the hind mule's tail ! " 




SHORTENING SAIL. 



Ho! lighten ship! ho! man the pump ! 
Ho, hostler, heave the lead ! 



THE SHIPWRECK. 

** A quarter-three ! — 'tis shoaling fast 1 
Three feet large ! — t-h-r-e-e feet ! — 
Three feet scant ! " I cried in fright 
" Oh, is there no retreat ? " 

Said Dollinger, the pilot man, 
As on the vessel flew, 
" Fear not, but trust in Dollinger, 
And he will fetch you through/' 

A panic struck the bravest hearts, 

The boldest cheek turned pale ; 
For plain to all, this shoaling said 
A leak had burst the ditch's bed ! 
And, straight as bolt from crossbow sped, 
Our ship swept on, with shoaling lead, 

Before the fearful gale I 

" Sever the tow-line ! Cripple the mules ! " 

Too late ! There comes a shock ! 

****** 

Another length, and the fated craft 
Would have swum in the saving lock ! 

Then gathered together the shipwrecked crew 

And took one last embrace, 
While sorrowful tears from despairing eyes 

Ran down each hopeless face ; 
And some did think of their little ones 

Whom they never more might see, 
And others of waiting wives at home, 

And mothers that grieved would be. 

But of all the children of misery there 

On that poor sinking frame, 
But one spake words of hope and faith, 

And I worshipped as they came : 
Said Dollinger the pilot man, — 

(O brave heart, strong and true !) — 
" Fear not, but trust in Dollinger, 

For he will fetch you through." 

Lo ! scarce the words have passed his lips 

The dauntless prophet say'th, 
When every soul about him seeth 

A wonder crown his faith ! 



374 



LIGHTENING SHIP. 

And count ye all, both great and small, 
As numbered with the dead! 

For mariner for forty year, 
On Erie, boy and man, 

I never yet saw such a storm, 
Or one 't with it began ! " 

So overboard a keg of nails 

And anvils three we threw, 
Likewise four bales of gunny-sacks, 

Two hundred pounds of glue, 
Two sacks of corn, four ditto wheat, 

A box of books, a cow, 
A violin, Lord Byron's works, 

A rip-saw and a sow. 




LIGHTENING SHIP. 



A curve ! a curve ! the dangers grow ! 
" Labbord !— stabbord !— s-t-e-a-d-y '.—so !- 
.HorcZ-a-port, Dol !— hellum-a-lee ! 

Haw the head mule !— the aft one geet 
Luff !— bring her to the wind ! " 



THE RESCUE. 



375 



For straight a farmer brought a plank, — 

(Mysteriously inspired) — 
And laying it unto the ship, 

In silent awe retired. 




THE MARVELOUS RESCUE. 



Then every sufferer stood amazed 

That pilot man before ; 
A moment stood. Then wondering turned, 

And speechless walked ashore. 



OHAPTEE LII. 

SINCE I desire, in this chapter, to say an instructive word 
or two about the silver mines, the reader may take this 
fair warning and skip, if he chooses. The year 1863 was per- 
haps the very top blossom and culmination of the " flush times." 
Yirginia swarmed with men and vehicles to that degree that 
the place looked like a very hive — that is when one's vision 
could pierce through the thick fog of alkali dust that was gen- 
erally blowing in summer. I will say, concerning this dust, 
that if you drove ten miles through it, you and your horses 
would be coated with it a sixteenth of an inch thick and pre- 
sent an outside appearance that was a uniform pale yellow 
color, and your buggy would have three inches of dust in it, 
thrown there by the wheels. The delicate scales used by the 
assayers were inclosed in glass cases intended to be air-tight, 
and yet some of this dust was so impalpable and so invisibly fine 
that it would get in, somehow, and impair the accuracy of 
those scales. 

Speculation ran riot, and yet there was a world of substan- 
tial business going on, too. All freights were brought over 
the mountains from California (150 miles) by pack-train partly, 
and partly in huge wagons drawn by such long mule teams 
that each team amounted to a procession, and it did seem, 
sometimes, that the grand combined procession of animals 
stretched unbroken from Yirginia to California. Its long 
route was traceable clear across the deserts of the Territory by 
the writhing serpent of dust it lifted up. By these wagons, 



SHIPPING SILVER BRICKS. 377 

freights over that hundred and fifty miles were $200 a ton for 
6mall lots (same price for all express matter brought by stage), 
and $100 a ton for full loads. One Virginia firm received one 
hundred tons of freight a month, and paid $10,000 a month 
freightage. In the winter the freights were much higher. All 
the bullion was shipped in bars by stage to San Francisco (a 
bar was usually about twice the size of a pig of lead and con- 
tained from $1,500 to $3,000 according to the amount of gold 
mixed with the silver), and the freight on it (when the ship- 
ment was large) was one and a quarter per cent, of its intrinsic 
value. So, the freight 
on these bars probably 
averaged something 
more than $25 each. 
Small shippers paid 
two per cent. There 
were three stages a 
day, each way, and I 
have seen the out-go- 
ing stages carry away a 

third of a ton of bullion each, and more than once I saw them 
divide a two-ton lot and take it off. However, these were ex- 
traordinary events.* Two tons of silver bullion would be in 

* Mr. Valentine, Wells Fargo's agent, has handled all the bullion shipped 
through the Virginia office for many a month. To his memory — which is 
excellent — we are indebted for the following exhibit of the company's busi- 
ness in the Virginia office since the first of January, 1862 : From January 
1st to April 1st, about $270,000 worth of bullion passed through that office, 
during the next quarter, $570,000; next quarter, $800,000; next quarter, 
$956,000; next quarter, $1,275,000; and for the quarter ending on the 30th 
of last June, about $1,600,000. Thus in a year and a half, the Virginia office 
only shipped $5,330,000 in bullion. During the year 1862 they shipped 
$2,615,000, so we perceive the average shipments have more than doubled 
in the last six months. This gives us room to promise for the Virginia 
office $500,000 a month for the year 1863 (though perhaps, judging by the 
steady increase in the business, we are under estimating, somewhat). This 
gives us $6,000,000 for the year. Gold Hill and Silver City together can 
beat us— we will give them $10,000,000. To Dayton, Empire City, Ophir 
and Carbon City, we will allow an aggregate of $8,000,000, which is not over 




SILVER BRICKS. 



379 IMMENSE TIMBER SUPPORTS. 

the neighborhood of forty bars, and the freight on it over $1,000. 
Each coach always carried a deal of ordinary express matter 
beside, and also from fifteen to twenty passengers at from $25 
to $30 a head. With six stages going all the time, Wells, 
Fargo and Co.'s Virginia City business was important and 
lucrative. 

All along under the centre of Virginia and Gold Hill, for a 
couple of miles, ran the great Comstock silver lode — a vein of 
ore from fifty to eighty feet thick between its solid walls of 
rock — a vein as wide as some of New York's streets. I will 
remind the reader that in Pennsylvania a coal vein only eight 
feet wide is considered ample. 

Virginia was a busy city of streets and houses above ground. 
Under it was another busy city, down in the bowels of the 
earth, where a great population of men thronged in and out 
among an intricate maze of tunnels and drifts, flitting hither 
and thither nnder a winking sparkle of lights, and over their 
heads towered a vast web of interlocking timbers that held the 
walls of the gutted Comstock apart. These timbers were as 
large as a man's body, and the framework stretched upward so 
far that no eye could pierce to its top through the closing gloom. 
It was like peering up through the clean-picked ribs and bones 
of some colossal skeleton. Imagine such a framework two 
miles long, sixty feet wide, and higher than any church spire in 
America. Imagine this stately lattice-work stretching down 
Broadway, from the St. Nicholas to Wall street, and a Fourth 

the mark, perhaps, and may possibly be a little under it. To Esmeralda we 
give $4,000,000. To Reese River and Humboldt $2,000,000, which is liberal 
now, but may not be before the year is out. So we prognosticate that the 
yield of bullion this year will be about $30,000,000. Placing the number of 
mills in the Territory at one hundred, this gives to each the labor of pro- 
ducing $300,000 in bullion during the twelve months. Allowing them to 
run three hundred days in the year (which none of them more than do), this 
makes their work average $1,000 a day. Say the mills average twenty tons 
of rock a day and this rock worth $50 as a general thing, and you have the 
actual work of our one hundred mills figured down " to a spot " — $1,000 a 
day each, and $30,000,000 a year in the aggregate. — Enterprise. 
[A considerable over estimate. — M. T.] 



UNDERGROUND POPULATION. 



379 



of July procession, reduced to pigmies, parading on top of it 
and flaunting their flags, high above the pinnacle of Trinity 
steeple. One can imagine that, but he cannot well imagine 
what that forest of timbers 
cost, from the time they 
were felled in the pineries 
beyond Washoe Lake, 
hauled up and around 
Mount Davidson at atro- 
cious rates of freightage, 
then squared, let down in- 
to the deep maw of the 
mine and built up there. 
Twenty ample fortunes 
would not timber one of 
the greatest of those silver 
mines. The Spanisli pro- 
verb says it requires a gold 
mine to " run " a silver one, 
and it is true. A beggar 
with a silver mine is a piti- 
able pauper indeed if he 
cannot sell. 

I spoke of the underground Virginia as a city. The Gould 
and Curry is only one single mine under there, among a great 
many others ; yet the Gould and Curry's streets of dismal drifts 
and tunnels were five miles in extent, altogether, and its pop- 
ulation five hundred miners. Taken as a whole, the under- 
ground city had some thirty miles of streets and a population 
of five or six thousand. In this present day some of those 
populations are at work from twelve to sixteen hundred feet 
under Virginia and Gold Hill, and the signal-bells that tell 
them what the superintendent above ground desires them to 
do are struck by telegraph as we strike a fire alarm. Some- 
times men fall down a shaft, there, a thousand feet deep. In 
such cases, the usual plan is to hold an inquest. 

If you wish to visit one of those mines, you may walk 




TIMBER SUPPORTS. 



3S0 



VISITING THE MINES. 



O 



FEOM GALLERY ' 



through a tunnel about halt a mik 
long if you prefer it, or you may 
take the quicker plan of shooting 
like a dart down a shaft, on a 
small platform. It is like tumbling 
down through an empty steeple, feet 
first. When you reach the bottom, 
you take a candle and tramp through 
drifts and tunnels where throngs of 
men are digging and blasting; you 
watch them send up tubs full of great 
lumps of stone — silver ore ; you select 
choice specimens from the mass, as 
souvenirs ; you admire the world of 
skeleton timbering ; you reflect fre- 
quently that you are buried under a 
mountain, a thousand feet below day- 
light ; being in the bottom of the 
mine you climb from "gallery" to 
"gallery," up endless ladders that 
stand straight up and down ; when 
your legs fail you at last, you lie 
down in a small box-car in a cramped 
" incline " like a half-up-ended sewer 
and are dragged up to daylight feel- 
as if you are crawling through a coffin 
that has no end to it. Arrived at the 
top, you find a busy crowd of men 
receiving the ascending cars and tubs 
and dumping the ore from an eleva- 
tion into long rows of bins capable of 
holding half a dozen tons each ; un- 
der the bins are rows of wagons load- 
ing from chutes and trap-doors in the 
bins, and down the long street is a 
procession of these wagons wending 
toward the silver mills with their 



THE CAVED MINES. 381 

rich freight. It is all " done," now, and there you are. You 
need never go down again, for you have seen it all. If you 
have forgotten the process of reducing the ore in the mill and 
making the silver bars, you can go back and find it again in 
my Esmeralda chapters if so disposed. 

Of course these mines cave in, in places, occasionally, and 
then it is worth one's while to take the risk of descending into 
them and observing the crushing power exerted by the pressing 
weight of a settling mountain. I published such an experience 
in the Enterprise, once, and from it I will take an extract : 

An Hour in the Caved Mines. — We journeyed down into the Ophir 
mine, yesterday, to see the earthquake. We could not go down the deep 
incline, because it still has a propensity to cave in places. Therefore we 
traveled through the long tunnel which enters the hill above the Ophir 
office, and then by means of a series of long ladders, climbed away down 
from the first to the fourth gallery. Traversing a drift, we came to the 
Spanish line, passed five sets of timbers still uninjured, and found the earth- 
quake. Here was as complete a chaos as ever was seen — vast masses of earth 
and splintered and broken timbers piled confusedly together, with scarcely 
an aperture left large enough for a cat to creep through. Rubbish was still 
falling at intervals from above, and one timber which had braced others ear- 
lier in the day, was now crushed down out of its former position, showing 
that the caving and settling of the tremendous mass was still going on. We 
were in that portion of the Ophir known as the "north mines." Returning 
to the surface, we entered a tunnel leading into the Central, for the pur- 
pose of getting into the main Ophir. Descending a long incline in this 
tunnel, we traversed a drift or so, and then went down a deep shaft from 
whence we proceeded into the fifth gallery of the Ophir. From a side-drift 
we crawled through a small hole and got into the midst of the earthquake 
again — earth and broken timbers mingled together without regard to grace 
or symmetry. A large portion of the second, third and fourth galleries 
had caved in and gone to destruction — the two latter at seven o'clock on the 
previous evening. 

At the turn-table, near the northern extremity of the fifth gallery, two 
big piles of rubbish had forced their way through from the fifth gallery, 
and from the looks of the timbers, more was about to come. These beams 
are solid — eighteen inches square ; first, a great beam is laid on the floor, 
then upright ones, five feet high, stand on it, supporting another horizontal 
beam, and so on, square above square, like the framework of a window. The 
superincumbent weight was sufficient to mash the ends of those great up- 
right beams fairly into the solid wood of the horizontal ones three inches, 
compressing and bending the upright beam till it curved like a bow. Before 
the Spanish caved in, some of their twelve-inch horizontal timbers were com- 



3S2 TERRIBLE APPEARANCE OF THE RUINS. 

pressed in this way until they were only five inches thick ! Imagine the 
power it must take to squeeze a solid log together in that way. Here, also, 
was a range of timbers, for a distance of twenty feet, tilted six inches out 
of the perpendicular by the weight resting upon them from the cared gal- 
leries above. You could hear things cracking and giving way, and it was 
not pleasant to know that the world overhead was slowly and silently sink- 
ing down upon you. The men down in the mine do not mind it, however. 

Returning along the fifth gallery, we struck the safe part of the Ophir 
incline, and went down it to the sixth ; but we found ten inches of water 
there, and had to come back. In repairing the damage done to the incline, 
the pump had to be stopped for two hours, and in the meantime the water 
gained about a foot. However, the pump was at work again, and the flood- 
water was decreasing. We climbed up to the fifth gallery again and sought 
a deep shaft, whereby we might descend to another part of the sixth, out of 
reach of the water, but suffered disappointment, as the men had gone to din- 
ner, and there was no one to man the windlass. So, having seen the earth- 
quake, we climbed out at the Union incline and tunnel, and adjourned, all 
dripping with candle grease and perspiration, to lunch at the Ophir office. 

During the great flush year of 1863, Nevada [claims to 
have] produced $25,000,000 in bullion — almost, if not quite, a 
round million to each thousand inhabitants, which is very 
well, considering that she was without agriculture and manu- 
factures.* Silver mining was her sole productive industry. 

* Since the above was in type, I learn from an official source that the 
above figure is too high, and that the yield for 1863 did not exceed $20,000,000. 
However, the day for large figures is approaching ; the Sutro Tunnel is to 
plow through the Comstock lode from end to end, at a depth of two thousand 
feet, and then mining will be easy and comparatively inexpensive ; and the 
momentous matters of drainage, and hoisting and hauling of ore will cease 
to be burdensome. This vast work will absorb many years, and millions of 
dollars, in its completion ; but it will early yield money, for that desirable 
epoch will begin as soon as it strikes the first end of the vein. The tunnel 
will be some eight miles long, and will develop astonishing riches. Cars 
will carry the ore through the tunnel and dump it in the mills and thus do 
away with the present costly system of double handling and transportation 
by mule teams. The water from the tunnel will furnish the motive power 
for the mills. Mr. Sutro, the originator of this prodigious enterprise, is one 
of the few men in the world who is gifted with the pluck and perseverance 
necessary to follow up and hound such an undertaking to its completion. 
He has converted several obstinate Congresses to a deserved friendliness to- 
ward his important work, and has gone up and down and to and fro in Europe 
until he has enlisted a great moneyed interest in it there. 



CHAPTEE LIII. 

EYERY now and then, in these days, the boys used to tell 
me I ought to get one Jim Blaine to tell me the stir- 
ring story of his grandfather's old ram — but they always added 
that I must not mention the matter unless Jim was drunk at 
the time — just comfortably and sociably drunk. They kept 
this up until my curiosity was on the rack to hear the story. I 
got to haunting Blaine ; but it was of no use, the boys always 
found fault with his condition ; he was often moderately but 
never satisfactorily drunk. I never watched a man's condition 
with such absorbing interest, such anxious solicitude ; I never 
so pined to see a man uncompromisingly drunk before. At 
last, one evening I hurried to his cabin, for I learned that this 
time his situation was such that even the most fastidious could 
find no fault with it — he was tranquilly, serenely, symmetri- 
cally drunk — not a hiccup to mar his voice, not a cloud upon 
his brain thick enough to obscure his memory. As I entered, 
he was sitting upon an empty powder-keg, with a clay pipe in 
one hand and the other raised to command silence. His face 
was round, red, and very serious ; his throat was bare and his 
hair tumbled ; in general appearance and costume he was a 
stalwart miner of the period. On the pine table stood a 
candle, and its dim light revealed "the boys" sitting here and 
there on bunks, candle-boxes, powder-kegs, etc. They said : 
" Sh — ! Don't speak — he's going to commence." 

THE STORY OF THE OLD EAM. 

I found a seat at once, and Blaine said : 

' [ don't reckon them times will ever come again. There 



3S4 



GRANDFATHER'S OLD RAM. 



never was a more bullier old ram than what he was. GrancU 
father fetched him from Illinois — got him of a man by the 

name of Yates 
—Bill Yates— 
maybe yon 
might have 
heard of him ; 
his father was a 
deacon — B a p - 
tist — and he was 
a rustler, too ; a 
man had to get 
np rnther early 
to get the start 
of old Thankful 
Yates ; it was 
him that put the 
Greens up to 
jining teams 
with my grand- 
father when he 
moved west. Seth Green was prob'ly the pick of the flock; 
he married a Wilkerson — Sarah Wilkerson — good cretur, she 
was — one of the likeliest heifers that was ever raised in old 
Stoddard, everybody said that knowed her. She could heft a 
bar'l of flour as easy as I can flirt a flapjack. And spin ? 
Don't mention it ! Independent ? Humph ! When Sile 
Hawkins come £ browsing around her, she let him know that 
for all his tin he couldn't trot in harness alongside of her. 
You see, Sile Hawkins was — no, it warn't Sile Hawkins, after 
all — it was a galoot by the name of Filkins — I disremember 
his first name ; but he was a stump — come into pra'r meeting 
drunk, one night, hooraying for Mxon, becuz he thought it 
was a primary ; and old deacon Ferguson up and scooted him 
through the window and he lit on old Miss Jefferson's head, 
poor old filly. She was a good soul — had a glass eye and used 
to lend it to old Miss Wagner, that hadn't any, to receive 




JIM BLAINE. 



MISS WAGNER'S GLASS EYE. 385 

company in ; it warn't big enough, and when Miss Wagner 
warn't noticing, it would get twisted around in the socket, and 



HURRAH FOR NIXON. 



look up, maybe, or out to one side, and every which way, 
while t' other one was looking as straight ahead as a spy-glass. 
Grown people didn't mind it, but it most always made the 
children cry, it was so sort of scary. She tried packing it in raw 
cotton, but it wouldn't work, somehow — the cotton would get 
loose and stick out and look so kind of awful that the children 
couldn't stand it no way. She was always dropping it out, and 
turning up her old dead-light on the company empty, and 
making them oncomfortable, becuz she never could tell when 
it hopped out, being blind on that side, you see. So some- 
body would have to hunch her and say, " Your game eye has 
fetched loose, Miss Wagner dear " — and then all of them 
would have to sit and wait till she jammed it in again — wrong 
side before, as a general thing, and green as a bird's egg, being 
a bashful cretur and easy sot back before company. But 
25f 



386 



IN THE COFFIN BUSINESS, 




MISS WAGNER. 



crutches when she had company 



being wrong side before warn't much difference, anyway, 
becuz her own eye was sky-blue and the glass one was yaller 

on the front side, so which- 
ever way she turned it it 
didn't match nohow. Old 
Miss Wagner was consid- 
erable on the borrow, she 
was. When she had a 
quilting, or Dorcas S'iety at 
her house she gen' ally bor- 
rowed Miss Higgins's wood- 
en leg to stump around on ; 
it was considerable shorter 
than her other pin, but 
much she minded that. She 
said she couldn't abide 
, becuz they were so slow ; 
said when she had company and things had to be done, she 
wanted to get up and hump herself. She was as bald as 
a jug, and so she used to borrow Miss Jacops's wig — Miss 
Jacops was the coffin-peddler's wife — a ratty old buzzard, he 
was, that used to go roosting around where people was sick, 
waiting for 'em ; and there that old rip would sit all day, in 
the shade, on a coffin that he judged would fit the can'idate ; 
and if it was a slow customer and kind of uncertain, he'd 
fetch his rations and a blanket along and sleep in the coffin 
nights. He was anchored out that way, in frosty weather, for 
about three weeks, once, before old Robbins's place, waiting 
for him ; and after that, for as much as two years, Jacops was 
not on speaking terms with the old man, on account of his 
disapp'inting him. He got one of his feet froze, and lost 
money, too, becuz old Bobbins took a favorable turn and got 
well. The next time Bobbins got sick, Jacops tried to make 
up with him, and varnished up the same old coffin and fetched 
it along ; but old Bobbins was too many for him ; he had him 
in, and 'peared to be powerful weak ; he bought the coffin for 
ten dollars and Jacops was to pay it back and twenty-five more 



i 



OLD BOBBINS COLLECTS DAMAGES. 



387 



besides if Bobbins didn't like the coffin after he'd tried it. 
And then Bobbins died, and at the funeral lie bursted off the 



*^i^-- 




WAITING FOR A CUSTOMER. 



lid and riz up in his shroud and told the parson to let up on 
the performances, becuz he could not stand such a coffin as 
that. You see he had been in a trance once before, when he 
was young, and he took the chances on another, cal'lating that 
if he made the trip it was money in his pocket, and if he 
missed fire he couldn't lose a cent. And by George he sued 
Jacops for the rhino and got jedgment ; and he set up the 
coffin in his back parlor and said he 'lowed to take his time, 
now. It was always an aggravation to Jacops, the way that 
miserable old thing acted. He moved back to Indiany pretty 
soon — went to Wellsville — Wellsville was the place the Hog- 
adorns was from. Mighty fine family. Old Maryland stock. 
Old Squire Hogadorn could carry around more mixed licker, 
and cuss better than most any man I ever see. His second 
wife was the widder Billings — she that was Becky Martin ; 
her dam was deacon Dunlap's first wife. Her oldest child, 
Maria, married a missionary and died in grace — et up by the 



388 



EVERYTHING DOES GOOD." 



savages. They et him, too, poor feller — biled him. It warn't 
the custom, so they say, but they explained to friends of his'n 
that went down there to bring away his things, that they'd 
tried missionaries every other way and never could get any 
good out of 'em — and so it annoyed all his relations to find 
'out that that man's life was fooled away just out of a dern'd 
experiment, so to speak. But mind you, there ain't anything 
ever reely lost ; everything that people can't understand and 
don't see the reason of does good if you only hold on and give 
it a fair shake ; Prov'dence don't fire no blank ca'tridges, boys. 
That there missionary's substance, unbeknowns to himself, 
actu'ly converted every last one of them heathens that took a 
chance at the barbacue. Nothing ever fetched them but that. 
Don't tell me it was an accident that he- was biled. There 

ain't no such a thing as an 
accident. When my uncle 
Lem was leaning up agin 
a scaffolding once, sick, or 
drunk, or suthin, an Irish- 
man with a hod full of 
bricks fell on him out of 
the third story and broke 
the old man's back in two 
places. People said it was 
an accident. Much acci- 
dent there was about that. 
He didn't know what he 
was there for, but he was 
there for a good object. If 
he hadn't been there the 
Irishman would have been 
killed. Nobody can ever 
make me believe anything 
different from that. Uncle 
Lem's dog was there. Why didn't the Irishman fall on the 
dog ? Becuz the dog would a seen him a coming and stood from 
under. That's the reason the dog warn't appinted. A dog 




WAS TO BE THERE. 



A MODEL WIDOW. 



389 



can't be depended on to carry out a special providence. Mark 
my words it was a put-up thing. Accidents don't happen, 
boys. Uncle Lem's dog — I wish you could a seen that dog. 
He was a reglar shepherd — or ruther he was 
part bull and part shepherd — splendid ani- 
mal ; belonged to parson Hagar before Uncle 
Lem got him. Parson Hagar belonged to 
the Western Reserve Hagars ; prime family ; 
his mother was a "Watson ; one of his sisters 
married a Wheeler ; they settled in Morgan 
county, and he got nipped by the machinery 
in a carpet factory and went through in less 
than a quarter of a minute ; his widder 
bought the piece of carpet that had his 
remains wove in, and people come a hundred 
mile to 'tend the funeral. There was four- 
teen yards in the piece. She wouldn't let 
them roll him up, but planted him just so ij3 
— full length. The church was middling 
small where they preached the funeral, and ?* 
they had to let one end of the coffin stick g£^M 
out of the window. They didn't bury him 
— they planted one end, and let him stand 
up, same as a monument. And they nailed 
a sign on it and put — put on — pat on it — m 
sacred to — the m-e-m-o-r-y — of fourteen 
y-a-r-d-s — of three-ply — car pet — con- 
taining all that was — m-o-r-t-a-1 — of — of — 
W-i-1-l-i-a-m— W-h-e— " 

Jim Blaine had been growing gradually 
drowsy and drowsier — his head nodded, 
once, twice, three times — dropped peacefully upon his breast, 
and he fell tranquilly asleep. The tears were running down 
the boys' cheeks — they were suffocating with suppressed laugh- 
ter — and had been from the start, though I had never noticed 
it. I perceived that I was " sold." I learned then that Jim 
Blaine's peculiarity was that whenever he reached a certain 




THE MONUMENT. 



390 



THE JOKE OUT. 



stage of intoxication, no human power could keep him from 
setting out, with impressive unction, to tell about a wonderful 
adventure which he had once had with his grandfather's old 
ram — and the mention of the ram in the first sentence was as 
far as any man had ever heard him get, concerning it. He 
always maundered off, interminably, from one thing to another, 
till his whisky got the best of him and he fell asleep. What 
the thing was that happened to him and his grandfather's old 
ram is a dark mystery to this day, for nobody has ever yet 
found out. 




OHAPTEE LIY. 

OF course there was a large Chinese population in Virginia 
— it is the case with every town and city on the Pacific 
coast. They are a harmless race when white men either let 
them alone or treat them no worse than dogs ; in fact they are 
almost entirely harmless anyhow, for they seldom think of re- 
senting the vilest insults or the crudest injuries. They are 
quiet, peaceable, tractable, free from drunkenness, and they 
are as industrious as the day is long. A disorderly Chinaman 
is rare, and a lazy one does not exist. So long as a Chinaman 
has strength to use his hands he needs no support from any- 
body ; white men often complain of want of work, but a China- 
man offers no such complaint ; he always manages to find 
something to do. He is a great convenience to everybody — 
even to the worst class of white men, for he bears the most of 
their sins, suffering fines for their petty thefts, imprisonment 
for their robberies, and death for their murders. Any white 
man can swear a Chinaman's life away in the courts, but no 
Chinaman can testify against a white man. Ours is the " land 
of the free" — nobody denies that — nobody challenges it. 
[Maybe it is because we won't let other people testify.] As I 
write, news comes that in broad daylight in San Francisco, 
some boys have stoned an inoffensive Chinaman to death, and 
that although a large crowd witnessed the shameful deed, no» 
one interfered. 

There are seventy thousand (and possibly one hundred 
thousand) Chinamen on the Pacific coast. There were about 



392 CHINESE IN VIRGINIA CITY. 

a thousand in Virginia. They were penned into a " Chinese 

quarter " — a thing which they do not particularly object to, as 

they are fond of herding together. Their buildings were of 

wood ; usually only one story high, and set thickly together 

along streets scarcely wide enough for a wagon to pass through. 

Their quarter was a little removed from the rest of the town. 

The chief employment of Chinamen in towns is to wash 

clothing. They always send a bill, like this below, pinned to 

the clothes. It is mere ■ ceremony, for it does not enlighten 

the customer much. Their price for washing 

\ i was $2.50 per dozen — rather cheaper than white 

r^T& people could afford to wash for at that time. A 

^* very common sign on the Chinese houses was : 

^CiT " ^ ee ^ U P> Washer and Ironer" ; "Hong Wo, 

^ylj Washer"; "Sam Sing & Ah Hop, Washing." 

F The house servants, cooks, etc., in California and 

Nevada, were chiefly Chinamen. There were 

few white servants and no Chinawomen so em- 

J%*- ployed. Chinamen make good house servants, 

— -^Y being quick, obedient, patient, quick to learn 

S \^^, and tirelessly industrious. They do not need to 

be taught a thing twice, as a general thing. They 

are imitative. If a Chinaman were to see his 

master break up a centre table, in a passion, and 

jJt* kindle a fire with it, that Chinaman would be 

'j ^ likely to resort to the furniture for fuel forever 

afterward. 

All Chinamen can read, write and cipher 
with easy facility — pity but all our petted voters 
could. In California they rent little patches 
of ground and do a deal of gardening. They 
will raise surprising crops of vegetables on a 
sand pile. They waste nothing. What is rub- 
bish to a Christian, a Chinaman carefully preserves and makes 
useful in one way or another. He gathers up all the old oyster 
and sardine cans that white people throw away, and pro- 
cures marketable tin and solder from them by melting. 




CHINESE AT HOME. 



393 




IMITATION. 



He gathers up old bones and turns them into manure. 
In California he gets a living out of old mining claims 
that white men have 
abandoned as ex- 
hausted and worth- 
less — and then the 
officers come down 
on him once a month 
with an exorbitant 
swindle to which the 
legislature has given 
the broad, general 
name of " foreign " 
mining tax, but it is 
usually inflicted on 
no foreigners but 
Chinamen. This 
swindle has in some 
cases been repeated 

once or twice on the same victim in the course of the same 
month — but the public treasury was not additionally enriched 
by it, probably. 

Chinamen hold their dead in great reverence — they worship 
their departed ancestors, in fact. Hence, in China, a man's front 
yard, back yard, or any other part of his premises, is made his 
family burying ground, in order that he may visit the graves 
at any and all times. Therefore that huge empire is one 
mighty cemetery ; it is ridged and wringled from its centre to 
its circumference with graves — and inasmuch as every foot of 
ground must be made to do its utmost, in China, lest the swarm- 
ing population suffer for food, the very graves are cultivated 
and yield a harvest, custom holding this to be no dishonor to 
the dead. Since the departed are held in such worshipful 
reverence, a Chinaman cannot bear that any indignity be 
offered the places where they sleep. Mr. Burlingame said that 
herein lay China's bitter opposition to railroads ; a road 
could not be built anywhere in the empire without disturbing 
the graves of their ancestors or friends. 



394 CHINESE IMMIGRATION. 

A Chinaman hardly believes he could enjoy the hereafter 
except his body lay in his beloved China ; also, he desires to 
receive, himself, after death, that worship with which he has 
honored his dead that preceded him. Therefore, if he visits a 
foreign country, he makes arrangements to have his bones re- 
turned to China in case he dies ; if he hires to go to a foreign 
country on a labor contract, there is always a stipulation that 
his body shall be taken back to China if he dies ; if the govern- 
ment sells a gang of Coolies to a foreigner for the usual five- 
year term, it is specified in the contract that their bodies shall 
be restored to China in case of death. On the Pacific coast 
the Chinamen all belong to one or another of several great 
companies or organizations, and these companies keep track of 
their members, register their names, and ship their bodies home 
when they die. The See Yup Company is held to be the 
largest of these. The Ning Yeong Company is next, and 
numbers eighteen thousand members on the coast. Its head- 
quarters are at San Francisco, where it has a costly temple, 
several great officers (one of whom keeps regal state in seclu- 
sion and cannot be approached by common humanity), and a 
numerous priesthood. In it I was shown a register of its mem- 
bers, with the dead and the date of their shipment to China 
duly marked. Every ship that sails from San Francisco carries 
away a heavy freight of Chinese corpses — or did, at least, until 
the legislature, with an ingenious refinement of Christian 
cruelty, forbade the shipments, as a neat underhanded way of 
deterring Chinese immigration. The bill was offered, whether 
it passed or not. It is my impression that it passed. There 
was another bill — it became a law — compelling every incoming 
Chinaman to be vaccinated on the wharf and pay a duly ap- 
pointed quack (no decent doctor would defile himself with 
guch legalized robbery) ten dollars for it. As few importers 
of Chinese would want to go to an expense like that, the law- 
makers thought this would be another heavy blow to Chinese 
immigration. 

What the Chinese quarter of Yirginia was like — or, indeed, 
what the Chinese quarter of any Pacific coast town was and is 



A VISIT TO CHINATOWN. 395 

like — may be gathered from this item which I printed in the 
Enterprise while reporting for that paper : 

Chinatown. — Accompanied by a fellow reporter, we made a trip through 
our Chinese quarter the other night. The Chinese have built their portion 
of the city to suit themselves ; and as they keep neither carriages nor 
wagons, their streets are not wide enough, as a general thing, to admit of 
the passage of vehicles. At ten o'clock at night the Chinaman may be seen 
in all his glory. In every little cooped-up, dingy cavern of a hut, faint with 
the odor of burning Josh-lights and with nothing to see the gloom by save 
the sickly, guttering tallow candle, were two or three yellow, long-tailed 
vagabonds, coiled up on a sort of short truckle-bed, smoking opium, motion- 
less and with their lustreless eyes turned inward from excess of satisfaction 
—or rather the recent smoker looks thus, immediately after having passed 
the pipe to his neighbor — for opium-smoking is a comfortless operation, and 
requires constant attention. A lamp sits on the bed, the length of the long 
pipe-stem from the smoker's mouth ; he puts a pellet of opium on the end of 
a wire, sets it on fire, and plasters it into the pipe much as a Christian would 
fill a hole with putty ; then he applies the bowl to the lamp and proceeds to 
smoke — and the stewing and frying of the drug and the gurgling of the 
juices in the stem would wellnigh turn the stomach of a statue. John 
likes it, though ; it soothes him, he takes about two dozen whiffs, and then 
rolls over to dream, Heaven only knows what, for we could not imagine by 
looking at the soggy creature. Possibly in his visions he travels far away 
from the gross world and his regular washing, and feasts on succulent rats 
and birds'-nests in Paradise. 

Mr. Ah Sing keeps a general grocery and provision store at No. 13 Wang 
street. He lavished his hospitality upon our party in the friendliest way. 
He had various kinds of colored and colorless wines and brandies, with un- 
pronouncable names, imported from China in little crockery jugs, and which 
he offered to us in dainty little miniature wash-basins of porcelain. He 
offered us a mess of birds'-nests ; also, small, neat sausages, of which we 
could have swallowed several yards if we had chosen to try, but we sus- 
pected that each link contained the corpse of a mouse, and therefore 
refrained. Mr. Sing had in his store a thousand articles of merchandise, 
curious to behold, impossible to imagine the uses of, and beyond our ability 
to describe. 

His ducks, however, and his eggs, we could understand ; the former were 
split open and flattened out like codfish, and came from China in that 
shape, and the latter were plastered over with some kind of paste which 
kept them fresh and palatable through the long voyage. 

We found Mr. Hong Wo, No. 37 Chow-chow street, making up a lottery 
scheme — in fact we found a dozen others occupied in the same way in vari- 
ous parts of the quarter, for about every third Chinaman runs a lottery, and 
the balance of the tribe " buck " at it. " Tom," who speaks faultless English, 
and used to be chief and only cook to the Territorial Enterprise, when the 



396 



SPECIMEN BUSINESS MEN. 



establishment kept bachelor's hall two years ago, said that " Sometime 
Chinaman buy ticket one dollar hap, ketch um two tree hundred, sometime 
no ketch um anyting ; lottery like one man fight um seventy — may-be he 
whip, may -be he get whip heself, welly good." However, the percentage 
being sixty-nine against him, the chances are, as a general thing, that " ha 




CHINESE LOTTEKT. 



get whip heself." We could not see that these lotteries differed in any 
respect from our own, save that the figures being Chinese, no ignorant white 
man might ever hope to succeed in telling " t'other from which ; " the man- 
ner of drawing is similar to ours. 

Mr. See Yup keeps a fancy store on Live Fox street. He sold us fans of 
white feathers, gorgeously ornamented ; perfumery that smelled like Lim- 
burger cheese, Chinese pens, and watch-charms made of a stone unscratch- 
able with steel instruments, yet polished and tinted like the inner coat of a 
sea-shell* As tokens of his esteem, See Yup presented the party with 
gaudy plumes made of gold tinsel and trimmed with peacocks' feathers. 

We ate chow-chow with chop-sticks in the celestial restaurants ; our com- 
rade chided the moon-eyed damsels in front of the houses for their want of fem- 
inine reserve ; we received protecting Josh-lights from our hosts and " dick- 



*A peculiar species of the "jade-stone" — to a Chinaman peculiarly 
precious. 



ABUSE OF THE CHINESE. 



397 



ered " for a pagan God or two. Finally, we were impressed with the genius 
of a Chinese book-keeper ; he figured up his accounts on a machine like a grid- 
iron with buttons strung on its bars ; the different rows represented units, 
tens, hundreds and thousands. He fingered them with incredible rapidity — 
in fact, he pushed them from place to place as fast as a musical professor's 
fingers travel over the keys of a piano. 

They are a kindly disposed, well-meaning race, and are 
respected and well treated by the upper classes, all over the 
Pacific coast. No Californian gentleman or lady ever abuses 
or oppresses a Chinaman, under any circumstances, an explana- 
tion that seems to be much needed in the East. Only the scum 
of the population do it — they and their children ; they, and, 
naturally and consistently, the policemen and politicians, like- 
wise, for these are the dust-licking pimps and slaves of the 
scum, there as well as elsewhere in America. 




CHAPTER LV. 

I BEGAN to get tired of staying in one place so long. 
There was no longer satisfying variety in going down to 
Carson to report the proceedings of the legislature once a year, 
and horse-races and pumpkin-shows once in three months ; 
(they had got to raising pumpkins and potatoes in Washoe 
Yalley, and of course one of the first achievements of the 
legislature was to institute a ten-thousand-dollar Agricultural 
Fair to show off forty dollars' worth of those pumpkins in — 
however, the territorial legislature was usually spoken of as 
the " asylum "). I wanted to see San Francisco. I wanted to 
go somewhere. I wanted — I did not know what I wanted. I 
had the " spring fever" and wanted a change, principally, no 
doubt. Besides, a convention had framed a State Constitu- 
tion ; nine men out of every ten wanted an office ; I believed 
that these gentlemen would "treat" the moneyless and the 
irresponsible among the population into adopting the consti- 
tution and thus wellnigh killing the country (it could not 
well carry such a load as a State government, since it had 
nothing to tax that could stand a tax, for undeveloped mines 
could not, and there were not fifty developed ones in the land, 
there was but little realty to tax, and it did seem as if nobody 
was ever going to think of the simple salvation of inflicting a 
money penalty on murder). I believed that a State government 
would destroy the " flush times," and I wanted to get away. I 
believed that the mining stocks I had on hand would soon be 
worth $100,000, and thought if they reached that before the 
Constitution was adopted, I would sell out and make myself 



AN OLD SCHOOLMATE. 



secure from the crash the change of government was going to 
bring. I considered $100,000 sufficient to go home with 
decently, though it was but a small amount compared to what 
I had been expecting to return with. I felt rather down- 
hearted about it, but I tried to comfort myself with the re- 
flection that with such a sum I could not fall into want.. 
About this time a schoolmate of mine whom I had not seen 
since boyhood, came tramping in on foot from Reese River, a 
very allegory of Poverty. The son of wealthy parents, here 
he was, in a strange land, hungry, bootless, mantled in an 
ancient horse-blanket, roofed 
with a brimless hat, and so 
generally and so extrava- 
gantly dilapidated that he 
could have " taken the shine 
out of the Prodigal Son 
himself," as he pleasantly 
remarked. He wanted to 
borrow forty-six dollars — 
twenty-six to take him to 
San Francisco, and twenty 
for something else ; to buy 
some soap with, maybe, for 
he needed it. I found I had 
but little more than the 
amount wanted, in my pock- 
et ; so I stepped in and bor- 
rowed forty-six dollars of a 
banker (on twenty days' time, 
without the formality of a 
note), and gave it him, rather 
than walk half a block to the 
office, where I had some specie laid up. If anybody had told 
me that it would take me two years to pay back that forty-six 
dollars to the banker (for I did not expect it of the Prodigal, 
and was not disappointed), I would have felt injured. And 
bo would the banker. 




AN OLD FRIEND. 



400 IN THE EDITORIAL CHAIR. 

I wanted a change. I wanted variety of some kind. It 
came. Mr. Goodman went away for a week and left me the 
post of chief editor. It destroyed me. The first day, I wrote 
my "leader" in the forenoon. The second day, I had no 
subject and put it off till the afternoon. The third day I put 
it off till evening, and then copied an elaborate editorial out 
of the "American Cyclopedia," that steadfast friend of the 
editor, all over this land. The fourth day I " fooled around " 
till midnight, and then fell back on the Cyclopedia again. 
The fifth day I cudgeled my brain till midnight, and then 
kept the press waiting while I penned some bitter personalities 
on six different people. The sixth day I labored in anguish 
till far into the night and brought forth — nothing. The paper 
went to press without an editorial. The seventh day I re- 
signed. On the eighth, Mr. Goodman returned and found 
six duels on his hands — my personalities had borne fruit. 

Nobody, except he has tried it, knows what it is to be an 
editor. It is easy to scribble local rubbish, with the facts all 
before you ; it is easy to clip selections from other papers ; it 
is easy to string out a correspondence from any locality ; but 
it is unspeakable hardship to write editorials. Subjects are the 
trouble — the dreary lack of them, I mean. Every day, it is 
drag, drag, drag — think, and worry and suffer — all the world 
is a dull blank, and yet the editorial columns must be filled. 
Only give the editor a subject ; , and his work is done — it is no 
trouble to write it up ; but fancy how you would feel if you 
had to pump your brains dry every day in the week, fifty-two 
weeks in the year. It makes one low spirited simply to think 
of it. The matter that each editor of a daily paper in America 
writes in the course of a year would fill from four to eight 
bulky volumes like this book ! Fancy what a library an editor's 
work would make, after twenty or thirty years' service. Yet 
people often marvel that Dickens, Scott, Bulwer, Dumas, etc., 
have been able to produce so many books. If these authors 
had wrought as voluminously as newspaper editors do, the 
result would be something to marvel at, indeed. How editors 
can continue this tremendous labor, this exhausting consump- 



ALMOST AN AGREEABLE OFFER. 401 

tion of brain fibre (for their work is creative, and not a mere 
mechanical laying-up of facts, like reporting), day after day 
and year after year, is incomprehensible. Preachers take two 
months' holiday in midsummer, for they find that to produce two 
sermons a week is wearing, in the long run. In truth it must 
be so, and is so ; and therefore, how an editor can take from 
ten to twenty texts and build upon them from ten to twenty 
painstaking editorials a week and keep it up all the year round, 
is farther beyond comprehension than ever. Ever since I 
survived my week as editor, I have found at least one pleasure 
in any newspaper that comes to my hand ; it is in admiring 
the long columns of editorial, and wondering to myself how 
in the mischief he did it ! 

Mr. Goodman's return relieved me of employment, unless 
I chose to become a reporter again. I could not do that ; I 
could not serve in the ranks after being General of the army. 
So I thought I would depart and go abroad into the world 
somewhere. Just at this juncture, Dan, my associate in the 
reportorial department, told me, casually, that two citizens had 
been trying to persuade him to go with them to New York 
and aid in selling a rich silver mine which they had discovered 
and secured in a new mining district in our neighborhood. He 
said they offered to pay his expenses and give him one third 
of the proceeds of the sale. He had refused to go. It was 
the very opportunity I wanted. I abused him for keeping so 
quiet about it, and not mentioning it sooner. He said it had 
not occurred to him that I would like to go, and so he had 
recommended them to apply to Marshall, the reporter of the 
other paper. I asked Dan if it was a good, honest mine, and 
no swindle. He said the men had shown him nine tons of the 
rock, which they had got out to take to New York, and he 
could cheerfully say that he had seen but little rock in Nevada 
that was richer ; and moreover, he said that they had secured 
a tract of valuable timber and a mill-site, near the mine. My 
first idea was to kill Dan. But I changed my mind, notwith- 
standing I was so angry, for I thought maybe the chance was 
not yet lost. Dan said it was by no means lost ; that the men 
26f 



402 DEPARTURE FROM VIRGINIA CITY. 

were absent at the mine again, and would not be in Virginia 
to leave for the East for some ten days ; that they had re- 
quested him to do the talking to Marshall, and he had promised 
that he would either secure Marshall or somebody else for 
them by the time they got back ; he would now say nothing 
to anybody till they returned, and then fulfil his promise by 
furnishing me to them. 

It was splendid. I went to bed all on fire with excite- 
ment ; for nobody had yet gone East to sell a Nevada silver 
mine, and the field was white for the sickle. I felt that such 
a mine as the one described by Dan would bring a princely 
sum in New York, and sell without delay or difficulty. I 
could not sleep, my fancy so rioted through its castles in the 
air. It was the " blind lead " come again. 

Next day I got away, on the coach, with the usual eclat 
attending departures of old citizens, — for if you have only half 
a dozen friends out there they will make noise for a hundred 
rather than let you seem to go away neglected and unregretted 
— and Dan promised to keep strict watch for the men that had 
the mine to sell. 

The trip was signalized but by one little incident, and that 
occurred just as we were about to start. A very seedy looking 
vagabond passenger got out of the stage a moment to wait 
till the usual ballast of silver bricks was thrown in. He was 
standing on the pavement, when an awkward express employe, 
carrying a brick weighing a hundred pounds, stumbled and 
let it fall on the bummer's foot. He instantly dropped on the 
ground and began to howl in the most heart-breaking way. A 
sympathizing crowd gathered around and were going to pull 
his boot off; but he screamed louder than ever and they 
desisted ; then he fell to gasping, and between the gasps ejacu- 
lated " Brandy ! for Heaven's sake, brandy ! " They poured 
half a pint down him, and it wonderfully restored and com- 
forted him. Then he begged the people to assist him to the 
stage, which was done. The express people urged him to 
have a doctor at their expense, but he declined, and said that 
if he only had a little brandy to take along with him, to soothe 



ONE LITTLE INCIDENT. 



403 



Lis paroxyms of pain when they came on, he would be grate* 
fill and content. He was quickly supplied with two bottles, 
and we drove off. He was so smiling and happy after that, 
that I could not refrain from asking him how he could possibly 
be so comfortable _ _^_ _ 

with a crushed foot. 

"Well," said he, 
"I hadn't had a 
drink for twelve 
hours, and hadn't a 
cent to my name. I 
was most perishing 
— and so, when that 
duffer dropped that 
hundred-pounder on 
my foot, I see my 
chance. Got a cork 
leg, you know ! " and 
he pulled up his pan- 
taloons and proved 
it. 

He was as drunk 
as a lord all day long, 
and full of chuck- 
lings over his timely 
ingenuity. 

One drunken 
man necessarily re- 
minds one of an- 
other. I once heard a gentleman tell about an incident which 
he witnessed in a Californian bar-room. He entitled it " Ye 
Modest Man Taketh a Drink." It was nothing but a bit of 
acting, but it seemed to me a perfect rendering, and worthy of 
Toodles himself. The modest man, tolerably far gone with beer 
and other matters, enters a saloon (twenty-five cents is the price 
for anything and everything, and specie the only money used) 
and lays down a half dollar ; calls for whiskey and drinks it ; 




FAREWELL AND ACCIDENT. 



404 



ANOTHER ANECDOTE, 



the bar-keeper makes change and lays the quarter in a wet 
place on the counter ; the modest man fumbles at it with 
nerveless fingers, but it slips and the water holds it ; he contem- 
plates it, and tries again ; same result ; observes that people 
are interested in what he is at, blushes ; fumbles at the quarter 
again — blushes — puts his forefinger carefully, slowly down, to 
make sure of his aim — pushes the coin toward the bar-keeper, 
and says with a sigh : 

" ('ic !) Gimme a cigar ! " 

Naturally, another gentleman present told about another 
drunken man. He said he reeled toward home late at night ; 

made a mistake and en- 
tered the wrong gate ; 
thought he saw a dog on 
the stoop ; and it was — an 
iron one. He stopped and 
considered ; wondered if 
it was a dangerous dog ; 
ventured to say " Be (hie) 
begone ! " No effect. Then 
he approached warily, 
and adopted conciliation ; 
up his lips and tried to 
whistle, but failed ; still approached, 
saying, " Poor dog !— doggy, doggy, 
doggy ! — poor doggy-dog ! " Got 
up on the stoop, still petting with 
fond names ; till master of the ad- 
vantages ; then exclaimed, " Leave, 
you thief ! " — planted a vindictive 
kick in his ribs, and went head-over- 
heels overboard, of course. A pause ; a sigh or two of pain, 
and then a remark in a reflective voice : 

"Awful solid dog. What could he ben eating? ('id) 
Eocks, p'raps. Such animals is dangerous. ' At's what / say 
— they're dangerous. If a man — ('ic!)— if a man wants to 
feed a dog on rocks, let him/<^ him on rocks ; 'at's all right; 




GIMMK A CIGAR! " 



AN INCIDENT OF MOUNT DAVIDSON. 405 

but let him keep him at home — not have him layin' round pro- 
miscuous, where ('ic !) where people's liable to stumble over 
him when they ain't noticin' ! " 

It was not without regret that I took a last look at the tiny- 
flag (it was thirty-five feet long and ten feet wide) fluttering 
like a lady's handkerchief from the topmost peak of Mount 
Davidson, two thousand feet above Virginia's roofs, and felt 
that doubtless I was bidding a permanent farewell to a city 
which had afforded me the most vigorous enjoyment of life I 
had ever experienced. And this reminds me of an incident 
which the dullest memory Virginia could boast at the time it 
happened must vividly recall, at times, till its possessor dies. 
Late one summer afternoon we had a rain shower. That was 
astonishing enough, in itself, to set the whole town buzzing, 
for it only rains (during a week or two weeks) in the winter 
in Nevada, and even then not enough at a time to make it 
worth while for any merchant to keep umbrellas for sale. But 
the rain was not the chief wonder. It only lasted five or ten 
minutes ; while the people were still talking about it all the 
heavens gathered to themselves a dense blackness as of mid- 
night. All the vast eastern front of Mount Davidson, over- 
looking the city, put on such a funereal gloom that only the 
nearness and solidity of the mountain made its outlines even 
faintly distinguishable from the dead blackness of the heavens 
they rested against. This unaccustomed sight turned all eyes 
toward the mountain ; and as they looked, a little tongue of 
rich golden flame was seen waving and quivering in the heart 
of the midnight, away up on the extreme summit ! In a few 
minutes the streets were packed with people, gazing with 
hardly an uttered word, at the one brilliant mote in the brooding 
world of darkness. It flicked like a candle-flame, and looked 
no larger ; but with such a background it was wonderfully 
bright, small as it was. It was the flag ! — though no one sus- 
pected it at first, it seemed so like a supernatural visitor of 
some kind — a mysterious messenger of good tidings, some 
were fain to believe. It was the nation's emblem transfigured 
by the departing rays of a sun that was entirely palled from 



406 



THE WONDERFUL VISITOR. 



view ; and on no other object did the glory fall, in all the 
broad panorama of mountain ranges and deserts. Not even 
upon the staff of the flag— for that, a needle in the distance 
at any time, was now untouched by the light and undistm- 
euishable in the gloom. For a whole hour the weird visitor 
winked and burned in its lofty solitude, and still the thousands 
of uplifted eyes watched it with fascinated interest. How the 
people were wrought up ! The superstition grew apace that 
this was a mystic courier come with great news from the war 
—the poetry of the idea excusing and commending it— and on 




THE HERALD OE GLAD NEWS. 

it spread, from heart to heart, from lip to lip and from street 
to street, till there was a general impulse to have out the 
military and welcome the hright waif with a salvo of artallery I 
And all that time one sorely tried man, the telegraph 
operator sworn to official secrecy, had to lock his lips and chain 
his tongue with a silence that was like to rend them ; ior he 
and he only, of all the speculating multitude, knew the great 



GOOD NEWS FROM THE EAST. 



407 



things this sinking sun had seen that day in the east — Yicks- 
burg fallen, and the Union arms victorious at Gettysburg ! 

But for the journalistic monopoly that forbade the slightest 
revealment of eastern news till a day after its publication in 
the California papers, the glorified flag on Mount Davidson 
would have been saluted and re-saluted, that memorable even- 
ing, as long as there was a charge of powder to thunder with ; 
the city would have been illuminated, and every man that had 
any respect for himself would have got drunk, — as was the 
custom of the country on all occasions of public moment. 
Even at this distant day I cannot think of this needlessly 
marred supreme opportunity without regret. What a time 
we might have had ! 




OHAPTEE LVI. 

~\T7"E rumbled over the plains and valleys, climbed the 
V V Sierras to the clouds, and looked down upon summer- 
clad California. And I will remark here, in passing, that all 
scenery in California requires distance to give it its highest 
charm. The mountains are imposing in their sublimity and 
their majesty of form and altitude, from any point of view — 
but one must have distance to soften their ruggedness and en- 
rich their tintings ; a Californian forest is best at a little dis- 
tance, for there is a sad poverty of variety in species, the trees 
being chiefly of one monotonous femily — redwood, pine, spruce, 
fir — and so, at a near view there is a wearisome sameness of 
attitude in their rigid arms, stretched downward and outward 
in one continued and reiterated appeal to all men to " Sh ! — 
don't say a word ! — you might disturb somebody ! " Close at 
hand, too, there is a reliefless and relentless smell of pitch and 
turpentine; there is a ceaseless melancholy in their sighing 
and complaining foliage ; one walks over a soundless carpet of 
beaten yellow bark and dead spines of the foliage till he feels 
like a wandering spirit bereft of a footfall ; he tires of the end- 
less tufts of needles and yearns for substantial, shapely leaves ; 
he looks for moss and grass to loll upon, and finds none, for 
where there is no bark there is naked clay and dirt, enemies 
to pensive musing and clean apparel. Often a grassy plain 
in California, is what it should be, but often, too, it is best 
contemplated at a distance, because although its grass blades 
are tall, they stand up vindictively straight and self-sufficient, 
and are unsociably wide apart, with uncomely spots of barren 
sand between. 

One of the queerest things I know of, is to hear tourists 



EASTERN LANDSCAPES. 



409 



from " the States " go into ecstasies over the loveliness of 
" ever-bloommg California." And they always do go into that 
sort of ecstasies. But perhaps they would modify them if they 
knew how old Californians, with the memory full upon them 
of the dust-covered and questionable summer greens of Cali- i 
fornian "verdure," 
stand astonished, and 
filled with worship- 
ping admiration,in the 
presence of the lavish 
richness, the brilliant 
green, the infinite 
freshness, the spend- 
thrift variety of form 
and species and foli- 
age that make an 
Eastern landscape a 
vision of Paradise it- 
self. The idea of a 
man falling into rap- 
tures over grave and 
sombre California, 
when that man has 

seen New England's meadow-expanses and her maples, oaks 
and cathedral-windowed elms decked in summer attire, or the 
opaline splendors of autumn descending upon her forests, comes 
very near being funny — would be, in fact, but that it is so 
pathetic. ~No land with an unvarying climate can be very 
beautiful. The tropics are not, for all the sentiment that is 
wasted on them. They seem beautiful at first, but sameness 
impairs the charm by and by. Change is the handmaiden 
Nature requires to do her miracles with. The land that has 
four well-defined seasons, cannot lack beauty, or pall with 
monotony. Each season brings a world of enjoyment and 
interest in the watching of its unfolding, its gradual, harmo- 
nious development, its culminating graces — and just as one 
begins to tire of it, it passes away and a radical change comes, 
with new witcheries and new glories in its train. And I think 




AN EASTERN LANDSCAPE. 



', 



410 CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

that to one in sympathy with nature, each season, in its turn, 
seems the loveliest. 

San Francisco, a truly fascinating city to live in, is 




A VARIABLE CLIMATE. 



stately and handsome at a fair distance, but close at hand 
one notes that the architecture is mostly old-fashioned, many 
streets are made up of decaying, smoke-grimed, wooden 
houses, and the barren sand-hills toward the outskirts obtrude 
themselves too prominently. Even the kindly climate is some- 
times pleasanter when read about than personally experienced, 
for a lovely, cloudless sky wears out its welcome by and by, 
and then when the longed for rain does come it stays. Even 
the playful earthquake is better contemplated at a dis — 

However there are varying opinions about that. 

The climate of San Francisco is mild and singularly 
equable. The thermometer stands at about seventy degrees 
the year round. It hardly changes at all. You sleep under 
one or two light blankets Summer and Winter, and never use 
& mosquito bar. Nobody ever wears Summer clothing. You 
wear black broadcloth — if you have it — in August and Janu- 
ary, just the same. It is no colder, and no warmer, in the one 
month than the other. You do not use overcoats and you do 
not use fans. It is as pleasant a climate as could well be con- 
trived, take it all around, and is doubtless the most unvarying 
in the whole world. The wind blows there a good deal in the 



ITS CLIMATE AND SEASONS. 411 

Summer months, but then you can go over to Oakland, if you 
choose — three or four miles away — it does not blow there. 
It has only snowed twice in San Francisco in nineteen years, 
and then it only remained on the ground long enough to 
astonish the children, and set them to wondering what the 
feathery stuff was. 

During eight months of the year, straight along, the skies 
are bright and cloudless, and never a drop of rain falls. But 
when the other four months come along, you will need to go 
and steal an umbrella. Because you will require it. ~Not just 
one day, but one hundred and twenty days in hardly varying 
succession. When you want to go visiting, or attend church, 
or the theatre, you never look up at the clouds to see whether 
it is likely to rain or not — you look at the almanac. If it is 
Winter, it will rain — and if it is Summer, it won't rain, and 
you cannot help it. You never need a lightning-rod, because 
it never thunders and it never lightens. And after you have 
listened for six or eight weeks, every night, to the dismal 
monotony of those quiet rains, you will wish in your heart the 
thunder would leap and crash and roar along those drowsy 
skies once, and make everything alive — you will wish the 
prisoned lightnings would cleave the dull firmament asunder 
and light it with a blinding glare for one little instant. You 
would give anything to hear the old familiar thunder again 
and see the lightning strike somebody. And along in the 
Summer, when you have suffered about four months of 
lustrous, pitiless sunshine, you are ready to go down on your 
knees and plead for rain — hail — snow — thunder and lightning 
— anything to break the monotony — you will take an earth- 
quake, if you cannot do any better. And the chances are 
that you'll get it, too. 

San Francisco is built on sand hills, but they are prolific 
sand hills. They yield a generous vegetation. All the rare 
flowers which people in " the States " rear with such patient 
care in parlor flower-pots and green-houses, flourish luxu- 
riantly in the open air there all the year round. Calla lilies, all 
sorts of geraniums, passion flowers, moss roses — I do not know 
the names of a tenth part of them. I only know that while 



412 THE HOTTEST PLACE ON EARTH. 

New Yorkers are burdened with banks and drifts of snow, 
Californians are burdened with banks and drifts of flowers, if 
they only keep their hands off and let them grow. And I 
have heard that they have also that rarest and most curious of 
all the flowers, the beautiful Espiritu Santo, as the Spaniards 
call it — or flower of the Holy Spirit — though I thought it 
grew only in Central America — down on the Isthmus. In its 
cup is the daintiest little fac-simile of a dove, as pure as snow. 
The Spaniards have a superstitious reverence for it. The 
blossom has been conveyed to the States, submerged in ether ; 
and the bulb has been taken thither also, but every attempt to 
make it bloom after it arrived, has failed. 

I have elsewhere spoken of the endless Winter of Mono, 
California, and but this moment of the eternal Spring of San 
Francisco. Now if we travel a hundred miles in a straight 
line, we come to the eternal Summer of Sacramento. One 
never sees Summer-clothing or mosquitoes in San Francisco — 
but they can be found in Sacramento. Not always and 
unvaryingly, but about one hundred and forty-three months 
out of twelve years, perhaps. Flowers bloom there, always, 
the reader can easily believe — people suffer and sweat, and 
swear, morning, noon and night, and wear out their stanchest 
energies fanning themselves. It gets hot there, but if you go 
down to Fort Yuma you will find it hotter. Fort Yuma is 
probably the hottest place on earth. The thermometer stays at 
one hundred and twenty in the shade there all the time — except 
when it varies and goes higher. It is a U. S. military post, 
and its occupants get so used to the terrific heat that they 
suffer without it. There is a tradition (attributed to John 
Phenix*) that a very, very wicked soldier died there, once, and 
of course, went straight to the hottest corner of perdition, — and 
the next day he telegraphed hack for his blankets. There is 
no doubt about the truth of this statement — there can be no 
doubt about it. I have seen the place where that soldier used 
to board. In Sacramento it is fiery Summer always, and you 
can gather roses, and eat strawberries and ice-cream, and wear 

* It has been purloined by fifty different scribblers who were too poor to 
invent a fancy but not ashamed to steal one. — M. T. 



A PICTURE OF SUMMER AND WINTER. 



413 



white linen clothes, and pant and perspire, at eight or nine 
o'clock in the morning, and then take the cars, and at noon 
put on your furs and your skates, and go skimming over frozen 




SACRAMENTO. 



THREE IIOURS AWAY. 



Donner Lake, seven thousand feet above the valley, among 
snow banks fifteen feet deep, and in the shadow of grand 
mountain peaks that lift their frosty crags ten thousand feet 
above the level of the sea. There is a transition for you I 
Where will you find another like it in the Western hemis- 
phere? And some of us have swept around snow- walled 
curves of the Pacific Railroad in that vicinity, six thousand 
feet above the sea, and looked down as the birds do, upon the 
deathless Summer of the Sacramento Valley, with its fruitful 
fields, its feathery foliage, its silver streams, all slumbering in 
the mellow haze of its enchanted atmosphere, and all infinitely 
softened and spiritualized by distance — a dreamy, exquisite 
glimpse of fairyland, made all the more charming and striking 
that it was caught through a forbidden gateway of ice and 
snow, and savage crags and precipices. 



CHAPTEE LVII. 

IT was in this Sacramento Yalley, just referred to, that a deal 
of the most lucrative of the early gold mining was done, 
and you may still see, in places, its grassy slopes and levels 
torn and guttered and disfigured by the avaricious spoilers of 
fifteen and twenty years ago. You may see such disfigure- 
ments far and wide over California — and in some such places, 
where only meadows and forests are visible — not a livinc 
creature, not a house, no stick or stone or remnant of a ruin, 
and not a sound, not even a whisper to disturb the Sabbath 
stillness — you will find it hard to believe that there stood at 
one time a fiercely-flourishing little city, of two thousand or 
three thousand souls, with its newspaper, fire company, brass 
band, volunteer militia, bank, hotels, noisy Fourth of July 
processions and speeches, gambling hells crammed with to- 
bacco smoke, profanity, and rough-bearded men of all nations 
and colors, with tables heaped With gold dust sufficient for the 
revenues of a German principality — streets crowded and rife 
with business — town lots worth four hundred dollars a front 
foot — labor, laughter, music, dancing, swearing, fighting, shoot- 
ing, stabbing — a bloody inquest and a man for breakfast every 
morning — everything that delights and adorns existence — all 
the appointments and appurtenances of a thriving and pros- 
perous and promising young city, — and now nothing is left of 
it all but a lifeless, homeless solitude. The men are gone, 
the houses have vanished, even the name of the place is for- 
gotten. In no other land, in modern times, have towns so 



CALIFORNIA — CHARACTER OF POPULATION. 415 

absolutely died and disappeared, as in the old mining regions 
of California. 

It was a driving, vigorous, restless population in those days. 
It was a curious population. It was the only population of the 
kind that the world has ever seen gathered together, and it is 
not likely that the world will ever see its like again. For, 
observe, it was an assemblage of two hundred thousand young 
men — not simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings, but stal- 
wart, muscular, dauntless young braves, brimful of push and 
energy, and royally endowed with every attribute that goes to 
make up a peerless and magnificent manhood — the very pick 
and choice of the world's glorious ones. No women, no 
children, no gray and stooping veterans, — none but erect, 
bright-eyed, quick-moving, strong-handed young giants — the 
strangest population, the finest population, the most gallant 
host that ever trooped down the startled solitudes of an 
unpeopled land. And where are they now? Scattered to 
the ends of the earth — or prematurely aged and decrepit — or 
shot or stabbed in street affrays — or dead of disappointed 
hopes and broken hearts — all gone, or nearly all — victims 
devoted upon the altar of the golden calf — the noblest holo- 
caust that ever wafted its sacrificial incense heavenward. It 
is pitiful to think upon. 

It was a splendid population — for all the slow, sleepy, slug- 
gish-brained sloths staid at home — you never find that sort of 
people among pioneers — you cannot build pioneers out of 
that sort of material. It was that population that gave to 
California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and 
rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and 
a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto 
this day — and when she projects a new surprise, the grave world 
smiles as usual, and says "Well, that is California all over." 

But they were rough in those times ! They fairly reveled 
in gold, whisky, fights, and fandangoes, and were unspeak- 
ably happy. The honest miner raked from a hundred to 
a thousand dollars out of his claim a day, and what with 
the gambling dens and the other entertainments, he hadn't a 



416 



A WOMAN! A WOMAN! 



cent the next morning, if he had any sort of luck. They 
cooked their own bacon and beans, sewed on their own 
buttons, washed their own shirts — blue woollen ones ; and if 
a man wanted a fight on his hands without any annoying 
delay, all he had to do was to appear in public in a white 
shirt or a stove-pipe hat, and he would be accommodated. For 
those people hated aristocrats. They had a particular and 
malignant animosity toward what they called a " biled shirt." 

It was a wild, free, disorderly, grotesque society ! Men — 
only swarming hosts of stalwart men — nothing juvenile, noth- 
ing feminine, visible anywhere ! 

In those days miners would flock in crowds to catch a 
glimpse of that rare and blessed spectacle, a woman ! Old 




"fetch her out. 

inhabitants tell how, in a certain camp, the news went abroad 
early in the morning that a woman was come ! They had 
seen a calico dress hanging out of a wagon down at the 
camping-ground — sign of emigrants from over the great plains. 
Everybody went down there, and a shout went up when an 






A DELIGHTED MINER. 



417 



actual, bona fide dress was discovered fluttering in the wind ! 
The male emigrant was visible. The miners said : 

" Fetch her out ! " 

He said : " It is my wife, gentlemen — she is sick — we have 
been robbed of money, provisions, everything, by the Indiana 
• — we want to rest." 

" Fetch her out ! We've got to see her ! " 

" But, gentlemen, the poor thing, she — " 

" Fetch her out ! " 

He " fetched her out," and they swung their hats and sent up 
three rousing cheers and a tiger; and they crowded around and 
gazed at her, and touched her dress, and listened to her voice 
with the look of men who listened to a memory rather than a 
present reality — and then they collected twenty-five hundred 
dollars in gold and gave it to the man, and swung their hats 
again and gave three more cheers, and went home satisfied. 

Once I dined in San Francisco with the family of a 
pioneer, and talked with his daughter, a young lady whose 
first experi- 
ence in San 
Francisco was 
an adventure, 
though she 
herself did not 
remember it, 
as she was 
only two or 
three years old 
at the time. 
Her father 
said that, after 
landing from 
the ship, they 
were walking 
up the street, 
a servant lead- 
ing the party with the little girl in her arms. 

27f 




WELL, IF IT AIN'T A CHILD 



And presently 



418 



WAITING FOR A TURN. 



a huge miner, bearded, belted, spurred, and bristling with 
deadly weapons — just down from a long campaign in the 
mountains, evidently — barred the way, stopped the servant, 
and stood gazing, with a face all alive with gratification and 
astonishment. Then he said, reverently : 

" Well, if it ain't a child ! " And then he snatched a little 
leather sack out of his pocket and said to the servant : 

" There's a hundred and fifty dollars in dust, there, and 
I'll give it to you to let me kiss the child ! " 

That anecdote is true. 

But see how things change. Sitting at that dinner-table, 
listening to that anecdote, if I had offered double the money 
for the privilege of kissing the same child, I would have been 
refused. Seventeen added years have far more than doubled 
the price. 

And while upon this subject I will remark that once in 
Star City, in the Humboldt Mountains, I took my place in 
a sort of long, post-office single file of miners, to patiently 
await my chance to peep through a crack in the cabin and get 
a sight of the splendid new sensation — a genuine, live Woman ! 
And at the end of half of an hour my turn came, and I put 
my eye to the crack, and there she was, with one arm akimbo, 
and tossing flap-jacks in a frying-pan with the other. And 
she was one hundred and sixty-five* years old, and hadn't a 
tooth in her head. 




* Being in calmer mood, now, I voluntarily knock off a hundred from 
that.— M. T. 



CHAPTER LVIIL 

FOR a few months I enjoyed what to me was an entirely 
new phase of existence — a butterfly idleness ; nothing to 
do, nobody to be responsible to, and untroubled with financial 
uneasiness. I fell in love with the most cordial and sociable 
city in the Union. After the sage-brush and alkali deserts of 
Washoe, San Francisco was Paradise to me. I lived at the 
best hotel, exhibited my clothes in the most conspicuous places, 
infested the opera, and learned to seem enraptured with music 
which oftener afflicted my ignorant ear than enchanted it, if I 
had had the vulgar honesty to confess it. However, I suppose 
I was not greatly worse than the most of my countrymen in that. 
I had longed to be a butterfly, and I was one at last. I attended 
private parties in sumptuous evening dress, simpered and aired 
my graces like a born beau, and polked and schottisched with 
a step peculiar to myself — and the kangaroo. In a word, I kept 
the due state of a man worth a hundred thousand dollars (pros- 
pectively,) and likely to reach absolute affluence when that silver- 
mine sale should be ultimately achieved in the East. I spent 
money with a free hand, and meantime watched the stock sales 
with an interested eye and looked to see what might happen in 
Nevada. 

Something very important happened. The property hold- 
ers of Nevada voted against the State Constitution ; but the 
folks who had nothing to lose were in the majority, and carried 
the measure over their heads. But after all it did not imme- 
diately look like a disaster, though unquestionably it was one 



420 



A GENERAL BREAKDOWN 



I hesitated, calculated the chances, and then concluded not to 
sell. Stocks went on rising ; speculation went mad ; bankers, 
merchants, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, laborers, even the 

very washerwomen 
and servant girls, 
were putting up 
their earnings on 
silver stocks, and 
every sun that rose 
in tfle morning 
went down on pau- 
pers enriched and 
rich men beggared. 
What a gambling 
carnival it was! 
Gould and Curry 
soared to six thou- 
sand three hundred 
dollars a foot ! And 
then — all of a sud- 

THE GRACE OF A KANGAROO. den, OUt Went tllC 

bottom and everything and everybody went to ruin and destruc- 
tion ! The wreck was complete. The bubble scarcely left a 
microscopic moisture behind it. I was an early beggar and a 
thorough one. My hoarded stocks were not worth the paper 
they were printed on. I threw them all away. I, the cheer- 
ful idiot that had been squandering money like water, and 
thought myself beyond the reach of misfortune, had not now 
as much as fifty dollars when I gathered together my various 
debts and paid them. I removed from the hotel to a very pri- 
vate boarding house. I took a reporter's berth and went to 
work. I was not entirely broken in spirit, for I was building 
confidently on the sale of the silver mine in the east. But I 
could not hear from Dan. My letters miscarried or were not 
answered. 

One day I did not feel vigorous and remained away from the 
office. The next day I went down toward noon as usual, and 




MY FIRST EARTHQUAKE. 



421 



found a note on my desk which had been there twenty-four 
hours. It was signed " Marshall " — the Virginia reporter — 
and contained a request that I should call at the hotel and see 
him and a friend or two that night, as they would sail for the 
east in the morning. A postscript added that their errand was 
a big mining speculation ! I was hardly ever so sick , in my 
life. I abused myself for leaving Virginia and entrusting to 
another man a matter I ought to have attended to myself; I 
abused myself for remaining away from the office on the one 
day of all the year that I should have been there. And thus 
berating myself I trotted a mile to the steamer wharf and 
arrived just in time to be too late. The ship was in the stream 
and under way. 

I comforted myself with the thought that may be the specu- 
lation would amount to nothing — 
poor comfort at best — and then went 
back to my slavery, resolved to put 
up with my thirty-five dollars a week 
and forget all about it. 

A month afterward I enjoyed my 
first earthquake. It was one which 
was long called the "great" earth- 
quake, and is doubtless so distinguish- 
ed till this day. It was just after noon, 
on a bright October day. I was com- 
ing down Third street. The only 
objects in motion anywhere in sight 
in that thickly built and populous 
quarter, were a man in a buggy behind 
me, and a street car wending slowly 
up the cross street. Otherwise, all 
was solitude and a Sabbath stillness. As I turned the corner, 
around a frame house, there was a great rattle and jar, and it 
occurred to me that here was an item ! — no doubt a fight in 
that house. Before I could turn and seek the door, there came 
a really terrific shock ; the ground seemed to roll under me in 
waves, interrupted by a violent joggling up and down, and 




DREAMS DISSIPATED. 



422 



EFFECTS OF THE SHOCK. 



there was a heavy grinding noise as of brick houses rubbing 
together. I fell up against the frame house and hurt my elbow. 
I knew what it was, now, and from mere reportorial instinct, 
nothing else, took out my watch and noted the time of day ; 
at that moment a third and still severer shock came, and as I 
reeled about on the pavement trying to keep my footing, I saw 
a sight ! The entire front of a tall four-story brick building 
in Third street sprung outward like a door and fell sprawling 
across the street, raising a dust like a great volume of smoke ! 
And here came the buggy — overboard went the man, and in 




THE "ONE-HORSE SHAY " OUT-DONb. 

less time than I can tell it the vehicle was distributed in small 
fragments along three hundred yards of street. One could 
have fancied that somebody had fired a charge of chair-rounds 
and rags down the thoroughfare. The street car had stopped, 
the horses were rearing and plunging, the passengers were 
pouring out at both ends, and one fat man had crashed half 
way through a glass window on one side of the car, got wedged 
fast and was squirming and screaming like an impaled madman. 



INCIDENTS AND CURIOSITIES. 



423 



Every door, of every house, as far as the eye could reach, was 
vomiting a stream of human beings ; and almost before one 
could execute a wink and 
begin another, there was 
a massed multitude of 
people stretching in end- 
less procession down ev- 
ery street my position 
commanded. Never was 
solemn solitude turned 
into teeming life quicker. 
Of the wonders 
wrought by " the great 
earthquake," these were 
aJl that came under my 
eye ; but the tricks it did, SBl =i 
elsewhere, and far and 
wide over the town, made 
t(K)thsome gossip for nine 




HARD ON THE INNOCENTS. 



days. The destruction of prop- 
erty was trifling — the injury 
to it was wide-spread and 
somewhat serious. 

The "curiosities" of the 
earthquake were simply end- 
less. Gentlemen and ladies 
who were sick, or were tak 
ing a siesta, or had dissipa- 
ted till a late hour and were 
making up lost sleep, throng- 
ed into the public streets in 
all sorts of queer apparel, and 
some without any at all. One 
woman who had been wash- 
ing a naked child, ran down 
the street holding it by the 
ankles as if it were a dressed turkey. Prominent citizens who 
were supposed to keep the Sabbath strictly, rushed out of saloons 




DRY BONES SHAKEN. 



424 



GOOD ADVICE BY A CHAMBERMAID. 



in their shirt-sleeves, with billiard cues in their hands. Doz- 
ens of men with necks swathed in napkins, rushed from 
barber-shops, lathered to the eyes or with one cheek clean 
shaved and the other still bearing a hairy stubble. Horses broke 
from stables, and a frightened dog rushed up a short attic ladder 
and out on to a roof, and when his scare was over had not the 
nerve to go down again the same way he had gone up. A 




"OH, WHAT SHALL I DO*" 

prominent editor flew down stairs, in the principal hote), with 
nothing on but one brief undergarment — met a chambermaid, 
and exclaimed : 

" Oh, what shall I do ! Where shall I go !" 

She responded with naive serenity : 

" If you have no choice, you might try a clothing-store !" 

A certain foreign consul's lady was the acknowledged leader 
of fashion, and every time she appeared in anything new or 
extraordinary, the ladies in the vicinity made a raid on their 
husbands' purses and arrayed themselves similarly. One map 



A SENSIBLE FASHION. 



42; 



who had suffered considerably and growled accordingly, was 
standing at the window when the shocks came, and the next 
instant the consul's wife, just out of the bath, fled by with no 
o* 1 .er apology for clothing than — a bath-towel ! The sufferer 
rose superior to the terrors of the earthquake, and said to his 
wife: 

"JSTow that is something likel Get out your towel my 
dear !" 

The plastering that fell from ceilings in San Francisco that 
day, would have covered 
several acres of ground. For 
some days afterward, groups 
of eyeing and pointing men 
stood about many a building, 
looking at long zig-zag 
cracks that extended from 
the eaves to the ground. 
Four feet of the tops of three 
chimneys on one house were 
broken square off and turned 
around in such a way as to 
completely stop the draft. 
A crack a hundred feet long 
gaped open six inches wide 

in the middle of one street „ GET 0UT Y0DB TOWEI 
and then shut together again 

with such force, as to ridge up the meeting earth like a slender 
grave. A lady sitting in her rocking and quaking parlor, saw 
the wall part at the ceiling, open and shut twice, like a mouth, 
and then-drop the end of a brick on the floor like a tooth. She 
was a woman easily disgusted with foolishness, and she arose and 
went out of there. One lady who was coming down stairs 
was astonished to see a bronze Hercules lean forward on its 
pedestal as if to strike her with its club. They both reached 
jhe bottom of the flight at the same time, — the woman insen- 
sible from the fright. Her child, born some little time after- 
ward, was club-footed . However — on second thought, — if the 




426 



EFFECT ON THE MINISTERS. 



reader sees any coincidence in this, lie must do it at his own 
risk. 

The first shock brought down two or three huge organ-pipes 
in one of the churches. The minister, with uplifted han^s, 
was just closing the services. He glanced up, hesitated, and 
said: 

" However, we will omit the benediction !" — and the next 
instant there was a vacancy in the atmosphere where he had 
stood. 

After the first shock, an Oakland minister said : 

"Keep your seats! 



There is no better place 
to die than this " — 

And added, after the 
third : 

" But outside is good 
enough !" He then skip- 
ped out at the back door. 
Such another destruc- 
tion of mantel ornaments 
and toilet bottles as the 
earthquake created, San 
Francisco never saw be- 
fore. There was hardly 
a girl or a matron in the 
"we will, omit the benediction. city but suffered losses of 

this kind. Suspended pictures were thrown down, but oftener 
still, by a curious freak of the earthquake's humor, they were 
whirled completely around with their faces to the wall ! There 
was great difference of opinion, at first, as to the course or 
direction the earthquake traveled, but water that splashed out 
of various tanks and buckets settled that. Thousands of people 
were made so sea-sick by the rolling and pitching of floors and 
streets that they were weak and bed-ridden for hours, and some 
few for even days afterward. — Hardly an individual escaped 
nausea entirely. 

The queer earthquake — episodes that formed the staple of 




ANOTHER MILLION LOST. 427 

San Francisco gossip for the next week would fill a much 
larger book than this, and so I will diverge from the subject. 

By and by, in the due course of things, I picked up a copy 
of the Enterprise one day, and fell under this cruel blow : 

Nevada Mines in New York. — G. M. Marshall, Sheba Hurs and Amos H. 
flose, who left San Francisco last July for New York City, with ores from mines 
in Pine Wood District, Humboldt County, and on the Reese River range, have 
disposed of a mine containing six thousand feet and called the Pine Mountains 
Consolidated, for the sum of $3,000,000. The stamps on the deed, which is now 
on its way to Humboldt County, from New York, for record, amounted to $3,000, 
which is said to be the largest amount of stamps ever placed on one document. A 
working capital of $1,000,000 has been paid into the treasury, and machinery has 
already been purchased for a large quartz mill, which will be put up as soon as 
possible. The stock in this company is all full paid and entirely unassessable. 
The ores of the mines in this district somewhat resemble those of the Sheba mine 
in Humboldt. Sheba Hurst, the discoverer of the mines, with his friends cor- 
ralled all the best leads and all the land and timber they desired before making 
public their whereabouts. Ores from there, assayed in this city, showi d them to 
be exceedingly rich in silver and gold — silver predominating. There is an abund- 
ance of wood and water in the District. We are glad to know that New York 
capital has been enlisted in the development of the mines of this region. Having 
seen the ores and assays, we are satisfied that the mines of the District are very 
valuable — anything but wild-cat. 

Once more native imbecility had carried the day, and I had 
lost a million ! It was the " blind lead " over again. 

Let us not dwell on this miserable matter. If I were invent- 
ing these things, I could be wonderfully humorous over them ; 
but they are too true to be talked of with hearty levity, even 
at this distant day.* Suffice it that I so lost heart, and so 
yielded myself up to repinings and sigbings and foolish regrets, 
that I neglected my duties and became about worthless, as a 
reporter for a brisk newspaper. And at last one of the propri- 
etors took me aside, with a charity I still remember with con- 
siderable respect, and gave me an opportunity to resign my 
berth and so save myself the disgrace of a dismissal. 

*True, and yet not exactly as given in the above figures, possibly. 1 saw Mar- 
shall, months afterward, and although he had plenty of money he did not claim 
to have captured an entire million. In fact I gathered that he had not then re- 
ceived $50,000. Beyond that figure his fortune appeared to consist of uncertain 
vast expectations rather than prodigious certainties. However, when the above 
item appeared in print I put full faith in it, and incontinently wilted and went 
to seed under it. 



CHAPTER LIX. 

FOB. a time I wrote literary screeds for the Golden Era. 
C. H. Webb had established a very excellent literary 
weekly called the Calif omian, but high merit was no guaranty 
of success; it languished, and he sold out to three printers, and 
Bret Harte became editor at $20 a week, and I was employed 
to contribute an article a week at $12. But the journal still 
languished, and the printers sold out to Captain Ogden, a rich 
man and a pleasant gentleman who chose to amuse himself 
with such an expensive luxury without much caring about the 
cost of it. When he grew tired of the novelty, he re-sold to 
the printers, the paper presently died a peaceful death, and I was 
out of work again. I would not mention these things but for 
the fact that they so aptly illustrate the ups and downs that 
characterize life on the Pacific coast. A man could hardly stum- 
ble into such a variety of queer vicissitudes in any other 
country. 

Por two months my sole occupation was avoiding acquaint- 
ances ; for during that time I did not earn a penny, or buy an 
article of any kind, or pay my board. I became a very adept 
at " slinking." I slunk from back street to back street, I slunk 
away from approaching faces that looked familiar, I shmk to my 
meals, ate them humbly and with a mute apology for every 
mouthful I robbed my generous landlady of, and at midnight, 
after wanderings that were but slinkings away from cheerful- 
ness and light, I slunk to my bed. I felt meaner, and lowlier 
and more despicable than the worms. During all this time I 



A HEALTHY OCCUPATION. 



429 



had but one piece of money — a silver ten cent piece — and I held 
to it and would not spend it on any account, lest the conscious- 
ness coming strong upon me that I was entirely penniless, 
might suggest suicide. I had pawned every thing but the 
Clothes I had on ; so I clung to 
my dime desperately, till it was 
smooth with handling. 

However, I am forgetting. 
I did have one other occupation 
beside that of " slinking." It 
was the entertaining of a col- 
lector (and being entertained 
by him,) who had in his hands 
the Virginia banker's bill for 
the forty-six dollars which I 
had loaned my schoolmate, the 
" Prodigal." This man used to 
call regularly once a week and 
dun me, ard sometimes oftener. 
He did it from sheer force of 
habit, for he knew he could get 
nothing. He would get out 
his bill, calculate the interest for me, at five per cent a month, 
and show me clearly that there was no attempt at fraud in it 
and no mistakes ; and then plead, and argue and dun with all 
his might for any sum — any little trifle — even a dollar — even 
half a dollar, on account. Then his duty was accomplished 
and his conscience free. He immediately dropped the subject 
there always ; got out a couple of cigars and divided, put his 
feet in the window, and then we would have a long, luxurious talk 
about everything and everybody, and he would furnish me a 
world of curious dunning adventures out of the ample store in 
his memory. By and by he would clap his hat on his head, 
shake hands and say briskly : 

" Well, business is business — can't stay with you always !" — 
and was oft in a second. 

The idea of pining for a dun ! And yet I used to long for 




430 A FRIEND IN MISERY. 

him to come, and would get as uneasy as any mother if the day 
went by without his visit, when I was expecting him. But he 
never collected that bill, at last nor any part of it. I lived to 
pay it to the banker myself. 

Misery loves company. Now and then at night, in out-of-the 
way, dimly lighted places, I found myself happening on another 
child of misfortune. He looked so seedy and forlorn, so home- 
less and friendless and forsaken, that I yearned toward him as 
a brother. I wanted to claim kinship with him and go about 
and enjoy our wretchedness together. The drawing toward 
each other must have been mutual ; at any rate we got to fall- 
ing together oftener, though still seemingly by accident ; and 
although we did not speak or evince any recognition, I think 
the dull anxiety passed out of both of us when we saw each 
other, and then for several hours we would idle along content- 
edly, wide apart, and glancing furtively in at home lights and 
fireside gatherings, out of the night shadows, and very much 
enjoying our dumb companionship. 

Finally we spoke, and were inseparable after that. For our 
woes were identical, almost. He had been a reporter too, and 
lost his berth, and this was his experience, as nearly as I can 
recollect it. After losing his berth, he had gone down, down, 
down, with never a halt : from a boarding house on Russian 
Hill to a boarding house in Kearney street ; from thence to 
Dupont ; from thence to a low sailor den ; and from thence to lodg- 
ings in goods boxes and empty hogsheads near the wharves. 
Then, for a while, he had gained a meagre living by sewing up 
bursted sacks of grain on the piers ; when that failed he had 
found food here and there as chance threw it in his way. He 
had ceased to show his face in daylight, now, for a reporter 
knows everybody, rich and poor, high and low, and cannot well 
avoid familiar faces in the broad light of day. 

This mendicant Blucher — I call him that for convenience — 
was a splendid creature. He was full of hope, pluck and phi- 
losophy ; he was well read and a man of cultivated taste ; he 
had a bright wit and was a master of satire ; his kindliness and 
his generous spirit made him royal in my eyes and changed his 
curb-stone seat to a throne and his damaged hat to a crown. 



A STREAK OF LUCK. 



431 



He had an adventure, once, which sticks fast in my memory 
as the most pleasantly grotesque that ever touched my sympa- 
thies. He had been without a penny for two months. He 
had shirked about obscure streets, among friendly dim lights, 
till the thing had become second nature to him. But at last 
he was driven abroad in daylight. The cause was sufficient ; 
he had not tasted food for forty-eight hours, and he could not 
endure the misery of his hunger in idle hiding. He came along 
a back street, glowering at the loaves in bake-shop windows, and 
feeling that he could trade his life away for a morsel to eat. 
The sight of the bread doubled his hunger ; but it was good 
to look at it, any how, and imagine what one might do if 
one only had it. Presently, in the middle of the street he 
saw a shining spot — looked 
again — did not, and could not, 
believe his eyes — turned away, 
to try them, then looked again. 
It was a verity — no vain, hun- 
ger-inspired delusion — it was a 
silver dime ! He snatched it — 
gloated over it ; doubted it — bit 
it — found it genuine — choked 
his heart down, and smothered 
a halleluiah. Then he looked 
around — saw that nobody was 
looking at him — threw the dime 
down where it was before — 
walked away a few steps, and 
approached again, pretending he 
did not know it was there, so that A prize. 

he could re-enjoy the luxury of finding it. He walked around it, 
viewing it from different points ; then sauntered about with his 
hands in his pockets, looking up at the signs and now and then 
glancing at it and feeling the old thrill again. Finally he took 
it up, and went away, fondling it in his pocket. He idled 
through unfrequented streets, stopping in doorways and corners 
to take it out and look at it. By and by he went home to his 




432 



AN IMAGINARY FEAST. 



lodgings — an empty qneensware hogshead,— and employed him- 
self till night trying to make up his mind what to buy with it. 
But it was hard to do. To get the most for it was the idea. 
He knew that at the Miner's Restaurant he could get a plate 
of beans and a piece of bread for ten cents ; or a fish-ball and 
some few trifles, but they gave "no bread with one fish-ball" there. 
At French Pete's he could get a veal cutlet, plain, and some 
radishes and bread, for ten cents ; or a cup of coffee — a pint at 
least — and a slice of bread ; but the slice was not thick enough 
by the eighth of an inch, and sometimes they were still more 
criminal than that in the cutting of it. At seven o'clock his 
hunger was wolfish ; and still his mind was not made up. He 
turned out and went up Merchant street, still ciphering ; and 
chewing a bit of stick, as is the way of starving men. He 
passed before the lights of Martin's restaurant, the most aristo- 
cratic in the city, and stopped. 
It was a place where he had of- 
ten dined, in better days, and 
Martin knew him well. Stand- 
ing aside, just out of the range 
of the light, he worshiped the 
quails and steaks in the show 
window, and imagined that 
may be the fairy times were not 
gone yet and some prince in 
disguise would come along pres- 
ently and tell him to go in there 
and take whatever he wanted. 
He chewed his stick with a hun- 
gry interest as he warmed to 
his subject. Just at this junc- 
ture he was conscious of some 
one at his side, sure enough ; 
and then a finger touched his arm. He looked up, over his 
shoulder, and saw an apparition — a very allegory of Hunger ! 
It was a man six feet high, gaunt, unshaven, hung with rags ; 
with a haggard face and sunken cheeks, and eyes that pleaded 
piteously. This phantom said : 




A LOOK IN AT THE WINDOW. 



WEALTHY BY COMPARISON, 



433 



" Come with me — please." 

He locked his arm in Blucher's and walked up the street to 
where the passengers were few and the light not strong, and 
then facing about, put out his hands in a beseeching way, and 
said: 

" Friend — stranger — look at me ! Life is easy to you — you go 
about, placid and content, as I did once, in my day — you have 
been in there, and eaten your sumptuous supper, aud picked 
your teeth, and hummed your tune, and thought your pleasant 




DO IT STRANGER. 



thoughts, and said to yourself it is a good world— but you've never 
suffered ! You don't know what trouble is — you don't know 
what misery is — nor hunger ! Look at me ! Stranger have 
pity on a poor friendless, homeless dog ! As God is my judge, 
28f 



434 TWO SUMPTUOUS DINNERS. 

I have not tasted food for eight and forty hours ! — look in my 
eyes and see if I lie ! Give me the least trifle in the world to 
keep me from starving — anything — twenty-five cents ! Do it, 
stranger — do it, please. It will be nothing to you, but life to 
me. Do it, and I will go down on my knees and lick the dust 
before you ! I will kiss your footprints — I will worship the 
very ground you walk on ! Only twenty-five cents ! I am 
famishing — perishing — starving by inches ! For God's sake 
don't desert me ! " 

Blucher was bewildered — and touched, too — stirred to the 
depths. He reflected. Thought again. Then an idea struck 
him, and he said : 

" Come with me." 

He took the outcast's arm, walked him down to Martin's 
restaurant, seated him at a marble table, placed the bill of fare 
before him, and said : 

" Order what you want, friend. Charge it to me, Mr. Mar- 
tin." 

" All right, Mr. Blucher," said Martin. 

Then Blucher stepped back and leaned against the counter 
and watched the man stow away cargo after cargo of buckwheat 
cakes at seventy-five cents a plate ; cup after cup of coffee, and 
porter house steaks worth two dollars apiece ; and when six 
dollars and a half s worth of destruction had been accomplished, 
and the stranger's hunger appeased, Blucher went down to 
French Pete's, bought a veal cutlet plain, a slice of bread, and 
three radishes, with his dime, and set to and feasted like a 
king! 

Take the episode all around, it was as odd as any that can 
be culled from the myriad curiosities of Californian life, 
perhaps. 



CHAPTER LX. 

BY and by, an old friend of mine, a miner, came down from 
one of the decayed mining camps of Tuolumne, Califor- 
nia, and I went back with him. We lived in a small cabin on 
a verdant hillside, and there were not five other cabins in view 
over the wide expanse of hill and forest. Yet a flourishing 
city of two or three thousand population had occupied this 
grassy dead solitude during the flush times of twelve or fifteen 
years before, and where our cabin stood had once been the 
heart of the teeming hive, the centre of the city. When the 
mines gave out the town fell into decay, and in a few years 
wholly disappeared — streets, dwellings, shops, everything — and 
left no sign. The grassy slopes were as green and smooth and 
desolate of life as if they had never been disturbed. The mere 
handful of miners still remaining, had seen the town spring up, 
spread, grow and flourish in its pride ; and they had seen it 
sicken and die, and pass away like a dream. With it their 
hopes had died, and their zest of life. They had long ago 
resigned themselves to their exile, and ceased to correspond 
with their distant friends or turn longing eyes toward their 
early homes. They had accepted banishment, forgotten the 
world and been forgotten of the world. They were far from 
telegraphs and railroads, and they stood, as it were, in a living 
grave, dead to the events that stirred the globe's great popula- 
tions, dead to the common interests of men, isolated and out- 
cast from brotherhood with their kind. It was the most singu- 
lar, and almost the most touching and melancholy exile that 
fancy can imagine. — One of my associates in this locality, for 



436 



AN EDUCATED MINER. 



two or three months, was a man who had had a university edu- 
cation ; but now for eighteen years he had decayed there by 
inches, a bearded, rough-clad, clay-stained miner, and at times, 

among his sighings and solilo- 
quizings, he unconsciously in- 
terjected vaguely remembered 
Latin and Greek sentences — 
dead and musty tongues, meet 
vehicles for the thoughts of one 
whose dreams were all of the 
past, whose life was a failure ; 
a tired man, burdened with the 
present, and indifferent to the 
future; a man without ties, 
hopes, interests, waiting for 
rest and the end. 

In that one little corner of 
California is found a species of 
mining which is seldom or nev- 
er mentioned in print. It is 
the old collegiate. called " pocket mining" and I 

am not aware that any of it is done outside of that little corner. 
The gold is not evenly distributed through the surface dirt, as 
in ordinary placer mines, but is collected in little spots, and 
they are very wide apart and exceedingly hard to find, but when 
you do find one you reap a rich and sudden harvest. There 
are not now more than twenty pocket miners in that entire lit- 
tle region. I think I know every one of them personally. I 
have known one of them to hunt patiently about the hill-sides 
every day for eight months without finding gold enough to 
make a snuff-box — his grocery bill running up relentlessly all 
the time — and then find a pocket and take out of it two 
thousand dollars in two dips of his shovel. I have known him 
to take out three thousand dollars in two hours, and go and 
pay up every cent of his indebtedness, then enter on a dazzling 
spree that finished the last of his treasure before the night was 
gone. And the next day he bought his groceries on credit as 
usual, and shouldered his pan and shovel and went off to tho 







POCKET MINING. 



437 



hills hunting pockets again happy and content. This is the 
most fascinating of all the different kinds of mining, and furnishes 
a very handsome percentage of victims to the lunatic asylum. 
Pocket hunting is an ingenious process. You take a spade- 
ful of earth from the hill-side and pat it in a large tin pan and 
dissolve and wash it gradually away till nothing is left but a 
teaspoonful of fine sediment. Whatever gold was in that earth 
has remained, because, being the heaviest, it has sought the 
bottom. Among the sediment you will find half a dozen yellow 
particles no larger than pin-heads. You are delighted. You 
move oft' to one side and wash another pan. If you find gold 
again, you move to one side further, and wash a third pan. If 
you find no gold this time, you 
are delighted again, because you 
know you are on the right scent. 
You lay an imaginary plan, 
shaped like a fan, with its han- 
dle up the hill — for just where 
the end of the handle is, you 
argue that the rich deposit lies 
hidden, whose vagrant grains of 
gold have escaped and been 
washed down the hill, spread- 
ing farther and farther apart 
as they wandered. And so you 
proceed up the hill, washing 
the earth and narrowing your 
lines every time the absence of 
gold in the pan shows that you 
are outside the spread of the fan ; striking a pocket. 

and at last, twenty yards up the hill your lines ha^e converged 
to a point — a single foot from that point you cannot find any 
gold. Your breath comes short and quick, you are feverish 
with excitement ; the dinner-bell may ring its clapper off, you 
pay no attention ; friends may die, weddings transpire, houses 
burn down, they are nothing to you ; you sweat and dig and 
delve with a frantic interest — and all at once you strike it ! 
Up comes a spadeful of earth and quartz that is all lovely with 




438 FREAKS OF FORTUNE. 

soiled lumps and leaves and sprays of gold. Sometimes that 
one spadefui 13 all — $500. Sometimes the nest contains $10,000, 
and it takes you three or four days to get it all out. The pock- 
et-miners tell of one nest that yielded $60,000 and two men 
exhausted it in two weeks, and then sold the ground for $10,- 
000 to a party who never got $300 out of it afterward. 

The hogs are good pocket hunters. All the summer they 
root around the bushes, and turn up a thousand little piles of 
dirt, and then the miners long for the rains ; for the rains beat 
upon these little piles and wash them down and expose the gold, 
possibly right over a pocket. Two pockets were found in 
this way by the same man in one day. One had $5,000 in it 
and the other $8,000. That man could appreciate it, for he 
hadn't had a cent for about a year. 

In Tuolumne lived two miners who used to go to the 
neighboring village in the afternoon and return every night 
with household supplies. Part of the distance they traversed 
a trail, and nearly always sat down to rest on a great boulder 
that lay beside the path. In the course of thirteen years they 
had worn that boulder tolerably smooth, sitting on it. By and 
by two vagrant Mexicans came along and occupied the seat. 
They began to amuse themselves by chipping off flakes from 
the boulder with a sledge-hammer. They examined one of 
these flakes and found it rich with gold. That boulder paid 
them $800 afterward. But the aggravating circumstance was 
that these " Greasers " knew that there must be more gold 
where that boulder came from, and so they went panning up 
the hill and found what was probably the richest pocket that 
region has yet produced. It took three months to exhaust it, 
and it yielded $120,000. The two American miners who used 
to sit on the boulder are poor yet, and they take turn about in 
getting up early in the morning to curse those Mexicans — and 
when it comes down to pure ornamental cursing, the native 
American is gifted above the sons of men. 

I have dwelt at some length upon this matter of pocket min- 
ing because it is a subject that is seldom referred to in print, 
and therefore I judged that it would have for the reader that 
interest which naturally attaches to novelty. 



CHAPTER LXL 

ONE of my comrades there — another of those victims of 
eighteen years of unrequited toil and blighted hopes — was 
one of the gentlest spirits that ever bore its patient cross in a 
weary exile : grave and simple Dick Baker, pocket-miner of 
Dead-House Gulch. — He was forty-six, gray as a rat, earnest, 
thoughtful, slenderly educated, slouchily dressed and clay-soiled, 
but his heart was finer metal than any gold his shovel ever 
brought to light — than any, indeed, that ever was mined or 
minted. 

Whenever he was out of luck and a little down-hearted, he 
would fall to mourning over the loss of a wonderful cat he used 
to own (for where women and children are not, men of kindly 
impulses take up with pets, for they must love something). 
And he always spoke of the strange sagacity of that cat with 
the air of a man who believed in his secret heart that there was 
something human about it — may be even supernatural. 
I heard him talking about this animal once. He said : 
" Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here, by the name of Tom 
Quartz, which you'd a took an interest in I reckon — most any 
body would. I had him here eight year — and he was the re- 
markablest cat I ever see. He was a large gray one of the 
Tom specie, an' he had more hard, natchral sense than any 
man in this camp — 'n' a, power of dignity — he wouldn't let the 
Gov'ner of Californy be familiar with him. He never ketched 
a rat in his life — 'peared to be above it. He never cared for 
nothing but mining. He knowed more about mining, that 



440 



THE MINER'S PET. 




TOM QUARTZ. 



cat did, than any man /ever, ever see. Yon couldn't tell him 
noth'n' 'bout placer diggin's — 'n' as for pocket mining, why 
he was just born for it. He would dig out after me an' Jim 

when we went over the hills pros- 
pect' n', and he would trot along 
behind us for as much as live mile, 
if we went so fur. An' he had the 
best judgment about mining 
ground — why you never see any- 
thing like it. When we went to 
work, he'd scatter a glance around, 
'n' if he didn't think much of the 
indications, he would give a look 
as much as to say, ' Well, I'll have 
to get you to excuse me] 'n' with- 
out another word he'd hyste his nose into the air 'n' shove for 
home. But if the ground suited him, he would lay low 'n' 
keep dark till the first pan was washed, 'n' then he would sidle 
up 'n' take a look, an' if there was about six or seven grains of 
gold he was satisfied — he didn't want no better prospect 'n' 
that — 'n' then he would lay down on our coats and snore like 
a steamboat till we'd struck the pocket, an' then get up 'n' 
superintend. He was nearly lightnin' on superintending. 

" Well, bye an' bye, up comes this yer quartz excitement. 
Every body was into it — every body was pick'n' 'n' blast'n' 
instead of shovelin' dirt on the hill side — every body was put'n' 
down a shaft instead of scrapin' the surface. Noth'n' would 
do Jim, but we must tackle the ledges, too, 'n' so we did. We 
commenced put'n' down a shaft, 'n' Tom Quartz he begin to 
wonder what in the Dickens it was all about. He hadn't ever 
seen any mining like that before, 'n' he was all upset, as you 
may say — he couldn't come to a right understanding of it no 
way — it was too many for him. He was down on it, too, you 
bet you — he was down on it powerful — 'n' always appeared to 
consider it the cussedest foolishness out. But that cat, you 
know, was always agin new fangled arrangements — somehow 
he never could abide 'em. You know how it is with old habits. 



TOM QUARTZ ON AN EXCURSION. 



441 



Bat by an' by Tom Quartz begin to git sort of reconciled a 
little, though he never could altogether understand that eternal 
sinkin' of a shaft an' never pannin' out any thing. At last he 
got to comin' down in the shaft, hisself, to try to cipher it out. 
An' when he'd git the blues, 'n' feel kind o< scruffy, 'n' aggra- 
vated 'n' disgusted — knowin' as he did, that the bills was run- 
nin' up all the time an' we warn't makin' a cent— he would 
curl up on a gunny sack in the corner an' go to sleep. Well, 
one day when the shaft was down about eight foot, the rock 
got so hard that we had to put in a blast — the first blast'n' 
we'd ever done since Tom Quartz was born. An' then we lit 
the fuse 'n' dumb out 'n' got off 'bout fifty yards — 'n' forgot 
'n' left Tom Quartz sound asleep on the gunny sack. In 'bout 
a minute we seen a puff of smoke bust up out of the hole, 'n' 
then everything let go with an awful crash, 'n' about four 




million ton of rocks 'n' dirt 'n' 

smoke 'n' splinters shot up 

'bout a mile an' a half into the 

air, an' by George, right in the dead centre of it was old Tom 

Quartz a goin' end over end, an' a snortin' an' a sneez'n', an' 

a clawin' an' a reachin' for things like all possessed. But it 

warn't no use, you know, it warn't no use. An' that was the 



442 



A PREJUDICED CAT. 




AFTER AN EXCURSION. 



last we see of him for about two minutes V a half, an' then all 
of a sudden it begin to rain rocks and rubbage, an' directly he 
come down ker-whop about ten foot off f m where we stood 
Well, I reckon he was p'raps the orneriest lookin' beast you 
ever see. One ear was sot back on his neck, 'n' his tail was 
stove up, 'n' his eye-winkers was swinged off, 'n' he was all 

blacked up with powder an' 
smoke, an' all sloppy with mud 
'n' slush fm one end to the 
other. Well sir, it warn't no 
use to try to apologize — we 
couldn't say a word. He took 
a sort of a disgusted look at his- 
self, 'n' then he looked at us — 
an' it was just exactly the same as if he had said — ' Gents, 
may be you think it's smart to take advantage of a cat that 
'ain't had no experience of quartz minin', but /think different ' 
— an' then he turned on his heel 'n' marched off home without 
ever saying another word. 

" Tkat was jest his style. An' may be you won't believe 
it, but after that you never see a cat so prejudiced agin quartz 
mining as what he was. An' by an' bye when he did get to 
goin' down in the shaft agin, you'd 'a been astonished at his 
sagacity. The minute we'd tetch off a blast 'n' the fuse'd begin 
to sizzle, he'd give a look as much as to say : i Well, I'll have 
to git you to excuse me,' an' it was surpris'n' the way he'd shin 
out of that hole 'n' go f r a tree. Sagacity ? It ain't no name 
for it. 'Twas inspiration !" 

I said, " Well, Mr. Baker, his prejudice against quartz-min- 
ing was remarkable, considering how he came by it. Couldn't 
you ever cure him of it ?" 

" Cure him ! No ! When Tom Quartz was sot once, he was 
always sot — and you might a blowed him up as much as three 
million times 'n' you'd never a broken him of his cussed prej- 
udice agin quartz mining." 

The affection and the pride that lit up Baker's face when he 
delivered this tribute to the firmness of his humble friend of 
other days, will always be a vivid memory with me. 



EMPTY POCKETS AND A ROVING LIFE. 443 

At the end of two months we had never " struck " a pocket. 
We had panned up and down the hillsides till they looked 
plowed like a field ; we could have put in a crop of grain, then, 
but there would have been no way to get it to market. We 
got many good " prospects," but when the gold gave out in 
the pan and we dug down, hoping and longing, we found only 
emptiness — the pocket that should have been there was as bar- 
ren as our own. — At last we shouldered our pans and shovels 
and struck out over the hills to try new localities. We pros- 
pected around Angel's Camp, in Calaveras county, during three 
weeks, but had no success. Then we wandered on foot amoiig 
the mountains, sleeping under the trees at night, for the weather 
was mild, but still we remained as centless as the last rose of 
summer. That is a poor joke, but it is in pathetic harmony 
with the circumstances, since we were so poor ourselves. In 
accordance with the custom of the country, our door had always 
stood open and ovr board welcome to tramping miners — they 
drifted along nearly every day, dumped their paust shovels 
by the threshold and took " pot luck " with us — and now on 
our own tramp we never found cold hospitality. 

Our wanderings were wide and in many directions ; and now 
I could give the reader a vivid description of the Big Trees 
and the marvels of the Yo Semite — but what has this reader 
done to me that I should persecute him ? I will deliver him 
into the hands of less conscientious tourists and take his bless- 
ing. Let me be charitable, though I fail in all virtues else. 

Some of the phrases in the above are mining technicalities, purely, and may be 
a little obscure to the general reader. In "placer diggings " the gold is scattered 
all through the surface dirt; in "pocket" diggings it is concentrated in one little 
spot ; in " quartz " the gold is in a solid, continuous vein of rock, enclosed between 
distinct walls of some other kind of stone — and this is the most laborious and 
expensive of all the different kinds of mining. " Prospecting " is hunting for a 
"placer; " indications' 1 are signs of its presence; "panning out" refers to the 
washing process by which the grains of gold are separated from the dirt ; a "pros- 
pect" is what one finds in the first panful of dirt — and its value determines whether 
it is a good or a bad prospect, and whether it is worth while to tarry there or seek 
further. . 



CHAPTER LXIL 

AFTER a three months' absence, I found myself in San 
Francisco again, without a cent. When my credit was 
about exhausted, (for I had become too mean and lazy, now, to 
work on a morning paper, and there were no vacancies on the 
evening journals,) I was created San Francisco correspond- 
ent of the Enterprise, and at the end of five months I was out 
of debt, but my interest in my work was gone ; for my corres- 
pondence being a daily one, without rest or respite, I got 
unspeakably tired of it. I wanted another change. The vag- 
abond instinct was strong upon me. Fortune favored and I 
got a new berth and a delightful one. It was to go down to 
the Sandwich Islands and write some letters for the Sacramento 
Union, an excellent journal and liberal with employes. 

We sailed in the propeller Ajax, in the middle of winter. 
The almanac called it winter, distinctly enough, but the weather 
was a compromise between spring and summer. Six days out 
of port, it became summer altogether. We had some thirty 
passengers ; among them a cheerful soul by the name of Wil- 
liams, and three sea-worn old whaleship captains going down 
to join their vessels. These latter played euchre in the smok- 
ing room day and night, drank astonishing quantities of raw 
whisky without being in the least affected by it, and were the 
happiest people I think I ever saw. And then there was" the 
old Admiral — " a retired whaleman. He was a roaring, ter- 
rific combination of wind and lightning and thunder, and earn- 
est, whole-souled profanity. But nevertheless he was tender- 



THE OLD ADMIRAL. 



445 



hearted as a girl. He was a raving, deafening, devastating 
typhoon, laying waste the cowering seas but with an nnvexed 
refuge in the centre where all comers were safe and at rest. 
Nobody could know the " Admiral " without liking him ; and 
in a sudden and dire emergency I think no friend of his would 
know which to 
c h o o s e — t o be 
cursed by him or 
prayed for by a less 
efficient person. 

His title of "Ad- 
miral" was more 
strictly " official " 
than any ever worn 
by a naval officer 
before or since, per- 
haps — for it was the 
voluntary offering 
of a whole nation, 
and came direct 
from the people 
themselves with- 
out any intermedi- 
ate red tape — the 
people of the Sand- 
wich Islands. It 
was a title that the three captains. 

came to him freighted with affection, and honor, and apprecia- 
tion of his unpretending merit. And in testimony of the gen- 
uineness of the title it was publicly ordained that an exclusive 
flag should be devised for him and used solely to welome his 
coming and wave him God-speed in his going. From that 
time forth, whenever his ship was signaled in the offing, or he 
catted his anchor and stood out to sea, that ensign streamed 
from the royal halliards on the parliament house and the nation 
lifted their hats to it with spontaneous accord. 

Yet he had never fired a gun or fought a battle in his life. 




44ft HOW HE BECAME A SECESSIONIST. 

When I knew him on board the Ajax, he was seventy-two 
years old and had plowed the salt water sixty-one of them. 
For sixteen years he had gone in and out of the harbor of 
Honolulu in command of a whaleship, and for sixteen more 
had been captain of a San Francisco and Sandwich Island pas- 
senger packet and had never had an accident or lost a vessel. 
The simple natives knew him for a friend who never failed 
them, and regarded him as children regard a father. It was a 
dangerous thing to oppress them when the roaring Admiral 
was around. 

Two years before I knew the Admiral, he had retired from 
the sea on a competence, and had sworn a colossal nine-jointed 
oath that he would " never go within smelling distance of the 
salt water again as long as he lived." And he had conscien- 
tiously kept it. That is to say, he . considered he had kept it, 
and it would have been more than dangerous to suggest to 
him, even in the gentlest way, that making eleven long sea voy- 
ages, as a passenger, during the two years that had transpired 
since he " retired," was only keeping the general spirit of it 
and not the strict letter. 

The Admiral knew only one narrow line of conduct to pur- 
sue in any and all cases where there was a fight, and that was 
to shoulder his way straight in without an inquiry as to the 
rights or the merits of it, and take the part of the weaker 
side. — And this was the reason why he was always sure to be 
present at the trial of any universally execrated criminal to 
oppress and intimidate the jury with a vindictive pantomime 
of what he would do to them if he ever caught them out of 
the box. And this was why harried cats and outlawed dogs 
that knew him confidently took sanctuary under his chair in 
time of trouble. In the beginning he was the most frantic 
and bloodthirsty Union man that drew breath in the shadow 
of the Flag ; but the instant the Southerners began to go down 
before the sweep of the Northern armies, he ran up the Con- 
federate colors and from that time till the end was a rampant 
and inexorable secessionist. 

He hated intemperance with a more uncompromising ani- 



flIS DAILY HABITS. 447 

mosity than any individual I have ever met, of either sex ; and 
he was never tired of storming against it and beseeching friends 
and strangers alike to be wary and drink with moderation. 
And yet if any creature had been guileless enough to intimate 
that his absorbing nine gallons of " straight " whisky during 
our voyage was any fraction short of rigid or inflexible abste- 
miousness, in that self-same moment the old man would have 
spun him to the uttermost parts of the earth in the whirlwind 
of his wrath. Mind, I am not saying his whisky ever affected 
his head or his legs, for it did not, in even the slightest degree. 
He was a capacious container, but he did not hold enough for 
that. He took a level tumblerful of whisky every morning before 
he put his clothes on — " to sweeten his bilge water," he said. — 
He took another after he got the most of his clothes on, " to set- 
tle his mind and give him his bearings." He then shaved, and 
put on a clean shirt ; after which he recited the Lord's Prayer 
in a fervent, thundering bass that shook the ship to her kelson 
and suspended all conversation in the main cabin. Then, at 
this stage, being invariably " by the head," or " by the stern," 
or " listed to port or starboard," he took one more to " put him 
on an even keel so that he would mind his helium and not 
miss stays and go about, every time he came up in the wind." 
— And now, his state-room door swung open and the sun of 
his benignant face beamed redly out upon men and women and 
children, and he roared his " Shipmets a'hoy !" in a way that 
was calculated to wake the dead and precipitate the final resur- 
,*ection ; and forth he strode, a picture to look at and a presence to 
enforce attention. Stalwart and portly ; not a gray hair ; broad- 
brimmed slouch hat ; semi-sailor toggery of blue navy flannel 
— roomy and ample ; a stately expanse of shirt-front and a lib 
eral amount of black silk neck-cloth tied with a sailor knot ; 
large chain and imposing seals impending from his fob ; awe- 
inspiring feet, and " a hand like the hand of Providence," as 
his whaling brethren expressed it ; wrist-bands and sleeves 
pushed back half way to the elbow, out of respect for the warm 
weather, and exposing hairy arms, gaudy with red and blue 
anchors, ships, and goddesses of liberty tattooed in India ink. 



4A$ 



A DANGEROUS ANTAGONIST. 



But these details were only secondary matters — his face was 
the lodestone that chained the eye. It was a sultry disk, glow- 
ing determinedly out through a weather beaten mask of mahog- 
any, and studded with warts, seamed with scars, " blazed " all 
over with unfailing fresh slips of the razor ; and with cheery 
eyes, under shaggy brows, contemplating the world from over 
the back of a gnarled crag of a nose that loomed vast and lonely 
out of the undulating immensity that spread away from its 
foundations. At his heels frisked the darling of his bachelor 
estate, his terrier " Fan," a creature no larger than a squirrel. 
The main part of his daily life was occupied in looking after 
"Fan," in a motherly way, and doctoring her for a hundred 
ailments which existed on- 
ly in his imagination. 

The Admiral seldom 
read newspapers ; and 
when he did he never be- 
lieved anything they said. 
He read nothing, and be- 
lieved in nothing,but u The 
Old Guard,'* a secession 
periodical published i n 
Xew York. He carrried 
a dozen copies of it with 
him, always, and referred 
to them for all required 
information. If it was not 
there, he supplied it him- 
self, out of a bountiful 
fancy, inventing history, 
names, dates, and every 
thing else necessary to 
make his point good in an 
argument. Consequently 
he was a formidable antagonist in a dispute. Whenever he 
swung clear of the record and began to create history, the ene- 
my was helpless and had to surrender. Indeed, the enemy 




<D ADMIRAL. 



AN UNEXPECTED OPPONENT. 



449 






could not keep from betraying some little spark of indignation 
at his manufactured history — and when it came to indignation, 
that was the Admiral's very " best hold." He was always 
ready for a political argument, and if nobody started one he 
would do it himself. With his third retort his temper would 
begin to rise, and within five minutes he would be blowing 
a gale, and within fifteen his smoking-room audience would 
be utterly stormed away and the old man left solitary and alone, 
banging the table with his fist, kicking the chairs, and roaring 

a hurricane of profanity. 

It got so, after a while, that 

^ whenever the Admiral ap- 

^gs: proached, with politics in 

^|| his eye, the passengers 

|§s; would drop out with quiet 

accord, afraid to meet him ; 

and he would camp on a 

deserted field. 

But he found his match 
at last, and before a full 
company. At one time or 
another, everybody had 
entered the lists against 
him and been routed, except the quiet passenger Williams. He 
had never been able to get an expression of opinion out of him 
on politics. But now, just as the Admiral drew near the door 
and the company were about to slip out, Williams said : 

" Admiral, are you certain about that circumstance concern- 
ing the clergymen you mentioned the other day ?" — referring 
to a piece of the Admiral's manufactured history. 

Every one was amazed at the man's rashness. The idea of 
deliberately inviting annihilation was a thing incomprehensible. 
The retreat came to a halt ; then everybody sat down again 
wondering, to await the upshot of it. The Admiral himself 
was as surprised as any one. He paused in the door, with his 
red handkerchief half raised to his sweating face, and contem- 
plated the daring reptile in fhe corner. 
29f 




DESERTED FIELD. 



450 BROADSIDES FROM THE ADMIRAL. 

" Certain of it ? Am I certain of it ? Do you think I've been 
lying about it ? What do you take me for ? Anybody that 
don't know that circumstance, don't know anything ; a child 
ought to know it. Read up your history ! Read it up 



, and don't come asking a man if he's certain 

about a bit of A B C stuff that the very southern niggers know 
all about." 

Here the Admiral's fires began to wax hot, the atmosphere 
thickened, the coming earthquake rumbled, he began to thunder 
and lighten. "Within three minutes his volcano was in full 
irruption and he was discharging flames and ashes of indigna- 
tion, belching black volumes of foul history aloft, and vomiting 
red-hot torrents of profanity from his crater. Meantime Wil- 
liams sat silent, and apparently deeply and earnestly interested 
in what the old man was saying. By and by, when the lull 
came, he said in the most deferential way, and with the grati- 
fied air of a man who has had a mystery cleared up which had 
been puzzling him uncomfortably : 

" Now I understand it. I always thought I knew that piece 
of history well enough, but was still afraid to trust it, because 
there was not that convincing particularity about it that one 
likes to have in history ; but when you mentioned every name, 
the other day, and every date, and every little circumstance, 
in their just order and sequence, I said to myself, this sounds 
something like — this is history — this is putting it in a shape 
that gives a man confidence ; and I said to myself afterward, I 
will just ask the Admiral if he is perfectly certain about the 
details, and if he is I will come out and thank him for clearing 
this matter up for me. And that is what I want to do now — 
for until you set that matter right it was nothing but just a 
confusion in my mind, without head or tail to it." 

Nobody ever saw the Admiral look so mollified before, and 
so pleased. Nobody had ever received his bogus history as 
gospel before ; its genuineness had always been called in ques- 
tion either by words or looks ; but here was a man that not only 
swallowed it all down, but was grateful for the dose. He was 
taken a back ; he hardly knew what to say ; even his profanity 



NEW WEAPONS EMPLOYED. 451 

failed him. Now, Williams continued, modestly and earnestly : 
" But Admiral, in saying that this was the first stone thrown, 
and that this precipitated the war, you have overlooked a cir- 
cumstance which you are perfectly familiar with, but which has 
escaped your memory. Now I grant you that what you have 
stated is correct in every detail — to wit : that on the 16th of 
October, 1860, two Massachusetts clergymen, named Waite 
and Granger, went in disguise to the house of John Moody, in 
Rockport, at dead of night, and dragged forth two southern 
women and their two little children, and after tarring and 
feathering them conveyed them to Boston and burned them 
alive in the State House square ; and I also grant your propo- 
sition that this deed is what led to the secession of South Car- 
olina on the 20th of December following. Very well." [Here 
the company were pleasantly surprised to hear Williams proceed 
to come back at the Admiral with his own invincible weapon 
— clean, pure, mcmufactured history, without a word of truth 
in it.] " Yery well, I say. But Admiral, why overlook the 
Willis and Morgan case in South Carolina? You are too well 
informed a man not to know all about that circumstance. Your 
arguments and your conversations have shown you to be inti- 
mately conversant with every detail of this national quarrel. 
You develop matters of history every day that show plainly 
that you are no smatterer in it, content to nibble about the 
surface, but a man who has searched the depths and possessed 
yourself of everything that has a bearing upon the great ques- 
tion. Therefore, let me just recall to your mind that Willis 
and Morgan case — though I see by your face that the whole 
thing is already passing through your memory at this moment. 
On the 12th of August, 1860, two months before the Waite 
and Granger affair, two South Carolina clergymen, named John 
H. Morgan and Winthrop L. Willis, one a Methodist and the 
other an Old School Baptist, disguised themselves, and went 
at midnight to the house of a planter named Thompson — 
Archibald F. Thompson, Yice President under Thomas Jeffer- 
son, — and took thence, at midnight, his widowed aunt, (a 
Northern woman,) and her adopted child, an orphan named 



4:52 THE ADMIRAL OVERPOWERED. 

Mortimer Highie, afflicted with epilepsy and suffering at the 
time from white swelling on one of his legs, and compelled to 
walk on crutches in consequence ; and the two ministers, in 
spite of the pleadings of the victims, dragged them to the bush, 
tarred and feathered them, and afterward burned them at the 
stake in the city of Charleston. You remember perfectly well 
what a stir it made ; you remember perfectly well that even 
the Charleston Courier stigmatized the act as being unpleasant, 
of questionable propriety, and scarcely justifiable, and likewise 
that it would not be matter of surprise if retaliation ensued. 
And you remember also, that this thing was the cause of the 
Massachusetts outrage. Who, indeed, were the two Massachu- 
setts ministers ? and who were the two Southern women they 
burned ? I do not need to remind you, Admiral, with your 
intimate knowledge of history, that Waite was the nephew of 
the woman burned in Charleston ; that Granger was her cousin 
in the second degree, and that the woman they burned in Bos- 
ton was the wife of John H. Morgan, and the still loved but 
divorced wife of Winthrop L. Willis. Now, Admiral, it is 
only fair that you should acknowledge that the first provocation 
came from the Southern preachers and that the Northern ones 
were justified in retaliating. In your arguments you never 
yet have shown the least disposition to withhold a just verdict 
or be in anywise unfair, when authoritative history condemned 
your position, and therefore I have no hesitation in asking you 
to take the original blame from the Massachusetts ministers, in 
this matter, and transfer it to the South Carolina clergymen 
where it justly belongs." 

The Admiral was conquered. This sweet spoken creature 
who swallowed his fraudulent history as if it were the bread 
of life ; basked in his furious blasphemy as if it were generous 
sunshine ; found only calm, even-handed justice in his rampart 
partisanship ; and flooded him with invented history so sugar- 
coated with flattery and deference that there was no rejecting 
it, was " too many " for him. He stammered some awkward, 
profane sentences about the Willis and 



THE VICTOR DECLARED A HERO 



453 



Morgan business having escaped his memory, but that he 
" remembered it now," and then, under pretence of giving Fan 
some medicine for an imaginary cough, drew out of the battle 
and went away, a vanquished man. Then cheers and laughter 
went up, and Williams, the ship's benefactor was a hero. The 
news went about the vessel, champagne was ordered, an enthu- 
siastic reception in- 
stituted in the smok- 
ing room, and every- 
body nocked thither 
to shake hands with 
the conqueror. The 
wheelsman said af- 
terward, that the 
Admiral stood up 
behind the pilot 
house and " ripped 
and cursed all to 
himself" till he 
loosened the smoke- 
stack guys and be- 
calmed the mainsail. 
The Admiral's 
power was broken. After that, if he began an argument, 
somebody would bring Williams, and the old man would grow 
weak and begin to quiet down at once. And as soon as he was 
done, Williams in his dulcet, insinuating way, would invent 
some history (referring for proof, to the old man's own excel- 
lent memory and to copies of " The Old Guard " known not 
to be in his possession) that would turn the tables completely 
and leave the Admiral all abroad and helpless. By and by 
he came to so dread Williams and his gilded tongue that he 
would stop talking when he saw him approach, and finally 
ceased to mention politics altogether, and from that time for- 
ward there was entire peace and serenity in the ship. 




WILLIAMS. 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

ON a certain bright morning the Islands hove in sight, lying 
low on the lonely sea, and everybody climbed to the upper 
deck to look. After two thousand miles of watery solitude 
the vision was a welcome one. As we approached, the impos- 
ing promontory of Diamond Head rose up out of the ocean 
its rugged front softened by the hazy distance, and presently 
the details of the land began to make themselves manifest : 
first the line of beach ; then the plumed coacoanut trees of the 
tropics ; then cabins of the natives ; then the white town of 
Honolulu, said to contain between twelve and fifteen thous- 
and inhabitants spread over a dead level ; with streets from 
twenty to thirty feet wide, solid and level as a floor, most of 
them straight as a line and few as crooked as a corkscrew. 
The further I traveled through the town the better I. liked 
it. Every step revealed a new contrast — disclosed something 
I was unaccustomed to. In place of the grand mud-colored 
brown fronts of San Francisco, I saw dwellings built of straw, 
adobies, and cream-colored pebble-and-shell-conglomerated coral, 
cut into oblong blocks and laid in cement ; also a great number 
of neat white cottages, with green window-shutters ; in place of 
front yards like billiard-tables with iron fences around them, I 
saw these homes surrounded by ample yards, thickly clad 
with green grass, and shaded by tall trees, through whose 
dense foliage the sun could scarcely penetrate ; in place of 
the customary geranium, calla lily, etc., languishing in dust 
and general debility, I saw luxurious banks and thickets of 
dowers, fresh as a meadow after a rain, and glowing with tha 



HONOLULU, SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



455 



richest dyes; in place of the dingy horrors of San Francisco's 
pleasure grove, the "Willows," I saw huge-bodied, wide-spread- 
ing forest 
trees, with 
s t r a n g e 
names and 
stranger 
appear a n c e 
— trees that 
cast a shad- 
ow like a 
t hunder- 
cloud, and 
were able to 
stand alone 
without be- 
ing tied to 
green poles ; 
in place of 
go 1 d ii s h, 
wiggling 
around in 
glass globes, 
assuming 
countless 
shades and 

degrees of distortion through the magnifying and diminishing 
qualities of their transparent prison houses, I saw cats — Tom- 
cats, Mary Ann cats, long-tailed cats, bob-tailed cats, blind 
eats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats, cross-eyed cats, gray cats, 
black cats, white cats, yellow cats, striped cats, spotted cats, 
tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats, groups of cats, 
platoons of cats, companies of cats, regiments of cats, armies 
of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of them 
sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep. 

I looked on a multitude of people, some white, in white 
coats, vests, pantaloons, even white cloth shoes, made snowy 
with chalk duly laid on every morning ; but the majority of 




SCENES ON THE ISLANDS. 



456 



DRESS AND HABITS OF INHABITANTS 



the people were almost as dark as negroes — women with 
comely features, fine black eyes, rounded forms, inclining to the 

voluptuous, clad in a single bright 
red or white garment that fell free 
and unconfined from shoulder to 
heel, long black hair falling loose, 
gypsy hats, encircled with wreaths 
of natural flowers of a brilliant car- 
mine tint ; plenty of dark men in 
various costumes, and some with noth- 
ing on but a battered stove-pipe hat 
tilted on the nose, and a very scant 
breech - clout ; — certain smoke-dried 
children were clothed in nothing but 
sunshine — a very neat fitting and pic- 
turesque apparel indeed. 

In place of roughs and rowdies 
staring and blackguarding on the cor- 
ners, I saw long-haired, saddle-col- 
ored Sandwich Island maidens sit- 
ting on the ground in the shade of corner houses, gazing 
indolently at whatever or whoever happened along; instead 
of wretched cobble-stone pavements, I walked on a firm 
foundation of coral, built up from the bottom of the sea by the 
absurd but persevering insect of that name, with alight layer of 
lava and cinders overlying the coral, belched up out of fathom- 
less perdition long ago through the seared and blackened crater 
that stands dead and harmless in the distance now ; instead of 
cramped and crowded street-cars, I met dusky native women 
sweeping by, free as the wind, on fleet horses and astride, with 
gaudy riding-sashes, streaming like banners behind them; 
instead of the combined stenches of Chinadom and Brannan 
street slaughter-houses, I breathed the balmy fragrance of jes- 
samine, oleander, and the Pride of India ; in place of the hurry 
and bustle and noisy confusion of San Francisco, I moved in 
the midst of a Summer calm as tranquil as dawn in the Gar- 
den of Eden ; in place of the Golden City's skirting sand hills 
and the placid bay, I saw on the one side a frame- work of tall, 




FASHIONABLE ATT1HK 



THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



457 



precipitous mountains close at hand, clad in refreshing green, 
and cleft by deep, cool, chasm-like valleys — and in front the 
grand sweep of the ocean : a brilliant, transparent green near 
the shore, bound and bordered by a long white line of foamy 
spray dashing against the reef, and further out the dead blue 
water of the deep sea, necked with " white caps," and in 
the far horizon a single, lonely sail — a mere accent-mark to 
emphasize a slumberous calm and a solitude that were without 
sound or limit. When the sun sunk down — the one intruder 
from other realms and persistent in suggestions of them— it 
was tranced luxury to sit in the perfumed air and forget that 
there was any world but these enchanted islands. 

It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream — till you got a bite. 
A scor- 
pion bite. 
Then the 
first duty 
was to get 
up out of 
the grass 
and kill 
the scor- 
pion ; and 
the next 
to bathe 
the bit- 
ten place 

with alcohol or brandy ; and the next to resolve to keep out 
of the grass in future. Then came an adjournment to the bed- 
chamber and the pastime of writing up the day's journal with 
one hand and the destruction of mosquitoes w r ith the other — a 
whole community of them at a slap. Then, observing an 
enemy approaching, — a hairy tarantula on stilts — why not set 
the spittoon on him ? It is done, and the projecting ends of 
his paws give a luminous idea of the magnitude of his reach. 
Then to bed and become a promenade for a centipede with 
forty-two legs on a side and every foot hot enough to burn a 




A BITK. 



458 



FRUITS AND DELIGHTFUL EFFECTS. 




RECONNOlTERINft. 



hole through a raw-hide. More soaking with alcohol, and a 
resolution to examine the bed before entering it, in future. 
Then wait, and suffer, till all the mosquitoes in the neighbor- 
hood have 
crawled in 
under the 
bar, then 
slip out 
quickly, 
shut them 
in and 
sleep 
peacefully 
on the 
floor till 
morn i n g. 
Meantime 
it is com- 
forting to curse the tropics in occasional wakeful intervals. 

We had an abundance of fruit in Honolulu, of course. 
Oranges, pine-apples, bananas, strawberries, lemons, limes, man- 
goes, guavas, melons, and a rare and curious luxury called the 
chirimoya, which is deliciousness itself. Then there is the 
tamarind. I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that 
was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me 
that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my 

lips, till they resembled the stem-end 
of a tomato, and I had to take my 
sustenance through a quill for twenty- 
four hours. They sharpened my 
teeth till I could have shaved with 
them, and gave them a "wire edge" 
that I was afraid would stay ; but 
a citizen said " no, it will come off 
when the enamel does " — which was 
I found, afterward, that only stran- 




EATING TAMARINDS. 

comforting, at any rate. 

gers eat tamarinds — but they only eat them once. 



CHAPTER LXIV. 

IK my diary of our third day in Honolulu, I find this : 
I am probably the most sensitive man in Hawaii to-night — 
especially about sitting down in the presence of my betters. 
I have ridden fifteen or twenty miles on horse-back since 5 p.m. 
and to tell the honest truth, I have a delicacy about sitting 
down at all. 

An excursion to Diamond Head and the King's Coacoanut 
Grove was planned to-day — time, 4:30 p.m. — the party to con- 
sist of half a dozen gentlemen and three ladies. They all 
started at the appointed hour except myself. I was at the 
Government prison, (with Captain Fish and another whaleship- 
skipper, Captain Phillips,) and got so interested in its examina- 
tion that I did not notice how quickly the time was passing. 
Somebody remarked that it was twenty minutes past fi.ve 
o'clock, and that woke me up. It was a fortunate circumstance 
that Captain Phillips was along with his " turn out," as he calls 
a top-buggy that Captain Cook brought here in 1778, and a 
horse that was here when Captain Cook came. Captain Phil- 
lips takes a just pride in his driving and in the speed of his 
horse, and to his passion for displaying them I owe it that we 
were only sixteen minutes coming from the prison to the 
American Hotel — a distance which has been estimated to be 
over half a mile. Put it took, some fearful driving. The Cap- 
tain's whip came down fast, and the blows started so much dust 
out of the horse's hide that during the last half of the journey 
we rode through an impenetrable fog, and ran by a pocket 
compass in the hands of Captain Fish, a whaler of twenty-six 
years experience, who sat there through the perilous voyage as 
self-possessed as if he had been on the euchre-deck of his own 



400 A HORSEBACK RIDE. 

ship, and calmly said, " Port your helm — port," from time to 
time, and " Hold her a little free — steady — so-o," and " Luff — 
hard down to starboard !" and never once lost his presence 
of mind or betrayed the least anxiety by voice or manner. 
When we came to anchor at last, and Captain Phillips looked 
at his watch and said, " Sixteen minutes — I told you it was in 
her ! that's over three miles an hour !" I could see he felt 
entitled to a compliment, and so I said I had never seen light- 
ning go like that horse. And I never had. 

The landlord of the American said the party had been gone 
nearly an hour, but that he could give me my choice of several 
horses that could overtake them. I said, never mind — I pre- 
ferred a safe horse to a fast one — I would like to have an 
excessively gentle horse — a horse with no spirit whatever — a 
lame one, if he had such a thing. Inside of five minutes I 
was mounted, and perfectly satisfied with my outfit. I had no 
time to label him " This is a horse," and so if the public took 
him for a sheep I cannot help it. I was satisfied, and that was 
the main thing. I could see that he had as many fine points 
as any man's horse, and so I hung my hat on one of 
them, behind the saddle, and swabbed the perspiration from 
my face and started. I named him after this island, " Oahu " 
(pronounced O-waw-hee). The first gate he came to he started 
in; I had neither whip nor spur, and so I simply argued 
the case with him. He resisted argument, bnt ultimately 
yielded to insult and abuse. He backed out of that gate and 
steered for another one on the other side of the street. I 
triumphed by my former process. Within the next six hun- 
dred yards he crossed the street fourteen times and attempted 
thirteen gates, and in the meantime the tropical sun was beat- 
ing down and threatening to cave the top of my head in, and 
I was literally dripping with perspiration. He abandoned the 
gate business after that and went along peaceably enough, but 
absorbed in meditation. I noticed this latter circumstance, 
and it soon began to fill me with apprehension. I said to my- 
self, this creature is planning some new outrage, some fresh 
deviltry or other — no horse ever thought over a subject so pro- 
foundly as this one is doing just for nothing. The more this 



A VICIOUS ANIMAL 



461 



thing preyed upon my mind the more uneasy I became, until 
the suspense became almost unbearable and I dismounted to 
see if there was anything wild in his eye — for I had heard 
that the eye of this noblest of our domestic animals is very 
expressive. I cannot describe what a load of anxiety was 




LOOKING FOR MISCHIEF 



lifted from my mind when I found that he was only asleep. 
I woke him up and started him into a faster walk, and then 
the villainy of his nature came out again. He tried to climb 
over a stone wall, five or six feet high. I saw that I must 
apply force to this horse, and that I might as well begin first, 
as last. I plucked a stout switch from a tamarind tree, and the 
moment he saw it, he surrendered. He broke into a convul- 
sive sort of a canter, which had three short steps in it and one 
long one, and reminded me alternately of the clattering shake 
of the great earthquake, and the sweeping plunging of the Ajax 
in a storm. 

And now there can be no fitter occasion than the present to 
pronounce a left-handed blessing upon the man who invented 
the American saddle. There is no seat to speak of about it — 



462 



NATURE AND ART. 



one might as well sit in a shovel — and the stirrups are nothing 
but an ornamental nuisance. If I were to write down here all 
the abuse I expended on those stirrups, it would make a large 
book, even without pictures. Sometimes I got one foot so far 
through, that the stirrup partook of the nature of an anklet ; 
sometimes both feet were through, and I was handcuffed by 
the legs; and sometimes my feet got clear out and left the stir- 
rups wildly dangling about my shins. Even when I was in 
proper position and carefully balanced upon the balls of my 
feet, there was no comfort in it, on account of my nervous 
dread that they were going to slip one way or the other in a 
moment. But the subject is too exasperating to write about. 

A mile and a half from town, I came to a grove of tall cocoa- 
nut trees, with clean, branchless stems reaching straight up 
sixty or seventy feet and topped with a spray of green foliage 
sheltering 
clusters of co- 
c o a-n u t s — 
not more pic- 
turesque 
than a forest 
of collossal 
ragged para- 
sols, with 
bunches of 
magnified 
grapes under 
them, would 

be. I once heard a grouty northern invalid say that a cocoa- 
nut tree might be poetical, possibly it was ; but it looked like 
a feather-duster struck by lightning. I think that describes 
it better than a picture — and yet, without any question, there 
is something fascinating about a cocoa-nut tree — and graceful, 
too. 

About a dozen cottages, some frame and the others of native 
grass, nestled sleepily in the shade here and there. The grass 
cabins are of a grayish color, are shaped much like our owu 
cottages, only with higher and steeper roofs usually, and are 




A FAMILY LIKENESS 



INTERESTING RUINS. 463 

made of some kind of weed strongly bound together in bun- 
dles. The roofs are very thick, and so are the walls ; the lat- 
ter have square holes in them for windows. At a little distance 
these cabins have a furry appearance, as if they might be made 
of bear skins. They are very cool and pleasant inside. The 
King's flag was flying from the roof of one of the cottages, 
and His Majesty was probably within. He owns the whole 
concern thereabouts, and passes his time there frequently, on 
sultry days " laying off." The spot is called " The King's 
Grove." 

Near by is an interesting ruin — the meagre remains of an 
ancient heathen temple — a place where human sacrifices were 
offered up in those old bygone days when the simple child of 
nature, yielding momentarily to sin when sorely tempted, 
acknowledged his error when calm reflection had shown it him, 
and came forward with noble frankness and offered up his 
grandmother as an atoning sacrifice — in those old days when 
the luckless sinner could keep on cleansing his conscience and 
achieving periodical happiness as long as his relations held out ; 
long, long before the missionaries braved a thousand privations 
to come and make them permanently miserable by telling them 
how beautiful and how blissful a place heaven is, and how 
nearly impossible it is to get there ; and showed the poor native 
how dreary a place perdition is and what unnecessarily liberal 
facilities there are for going to it ; showed him how, in his 
ignorance he had gone and fooled away all his kinfolks to no 
purpose ; showed him what rapture it is to work all day long 
for fifty cents to buy food for next day with, as compared with 
fishing for pastime and lolling in the shade through eternal 
Summer, and eating of the bounty that nobody labored to pro- 
vide but Nature. How sad it is to think of the multitudes 
who have gone to their graves in this beautiful island and never 
knew there was a hell ! 

This ancient temple was built of rough blocks < of lava, and 
was simply a roofless inclosure a hundred and thirty feet long 
and seventy wide — nothing but naked walls, very thick, but 
not much higher than a man's head. They will last for ages 
no doubt, if left unmolested. Its three altars and other sacred 



464: ALL PRAISE TO THE MISSIONARIES. 

appurtenances have crumbled and passed away years ago. It 
is said that in the old times thousands of human beings were 
slaughtered here, in the presence of naked and howling savages. 
If these mute stones could speak, what tales they could tell, 
what pictures they could describe, of fettered victims writhing 
under the knife ; of massed forms straining forward out of the 
gloom, with ferocious faces lit up by the sacrificial fires ; of the 
background of ghostly trees ; of the dark pyramid of Diamond 
Head standing sentinel over the uncanny scene, and the peace- 
ful moon looking down upon it through rifts in the cloud-rack ! 

"When Kamehameha (pronounced Ka-may-ha-may-ah) the 
Great — who was a sort of a Napoleon in military genius and 
uniform success — invaded this island of Oahu three quarters 
of a century ago, and exterminated the army sent to oppose 
him, and took full and final possession of the country, he search- 
ed out the dead body of the King of Oahu, and those of the 
principal chiefs, and impaled their heads on the walls of this 
temple. 

Those were savage times when this old slaughter-house was 
in its prime. The King and the chiefs ruled the common herd 
with a rod of iron ; made them gather all the provisions the 
masters needed ; build all the houses and temples ; stand all 
the expenses, of whatever kind ; take kicks and cuffs for thanks ; 
drag out lives well flavored with misery, and then suifer death 
for trifling oflences or yield up their lives on the sacrificial altars 
to purchase favors from the gods for their hard rulers. The 
missionaries have clothed them, educated them, broken up the 
tyrannous authority of their chiefs, and given them freedom 
and the right to enjoy whatever their hands and brains produce 
with equal laws for all, and punishment for all alike who trans- 
gress them. The contrast is so strong — the benefit conferred 
upon this people by the missionaries is so prominent, so palpa- 
ble and so unquestionable, that the frankest compliment I can 
pay them, and the best, is simply to point to the condition of 
the Sandwich Islanders of Captain Cook's time, and their con- 
dition to-day. Their work speaks for itself. 



CHAPTER LXY. 

BY and by, aftar a rugged climb, we halted on the summit 
of a hill which commanded a far-reaching view. The 
moon rose and flooded mountain and valley and ocean with 
a mellow radiance, and out of the shadows of the foliage the 
distant lights of Honolulu glinted like an encampment of fire- 
flies. The air was heavy with the fragrance of flowers. The 
halt was brief. — Gayly laughing and talking, the party galloped 
on, and I clung to the pommel and cantered after. Presently we 
came to a place where no grass grew — a wide expanse of deep 
sand. They said it was an old battle ground. All around 
everywhere, not three feet apart, the bleached bones of men 
gleamed white in the moonlight. We picked up a lot of them 
for mementoes. I got quite a number of arm bones and leg 
bones — of great chiefs, may be, who had fought savagely in that 
fearful battle in the old days, when blood flowed like wine 
where we now stood. — and wore the choicest of them out on 
Oahu afterward, trying to make him go. All sorts of bones 
could be found except skulls ; but a citizen said, irreverently, 
that there had been an unusual number of " skull-hunters n 
there lately — a species of sportsmen I had never heard of 
before. 

Nothing whatever is known about this place — its story is a 
secret that will never be revealed. The oldest natives make 
no pretense of being possessed of its history. They say these 



±66 A FRIGHTFUL LEAP. 

bones were here when they were children. They were here 
when their grandfathers were children — but how they came 
here, they can only conjecture. Many people believe this spot 
to be an ancient battle-ground, and it is usual to call it so ; and 
they believe that these skeletons have lain for ages just where 
their proprietors fell in the great fight. Other people believe 
that Kamehameha I. fought his first battle here. On 
this point, I have heard a story, which may have been taken 
from one of the numerous books which have been written con- 
cerning these islands — I do not know where the narrator got 
it. He said that when Kamehameha (who was at first merely 
a subordinate chief on the island of Hawaii), landed here, he 
brought a large army with him, and encamped at Waikiki. 
The Oahuans marched against him, and so confident were they 
of success that they readily acceded to a demand of their priests 
that they should draw a line where these bones now lie, and 
take an oath that, if forced to retreat at all, they would never 
retreat beyond this boundary. The priests told them that 
death and everlasting punishment would overtake any who 
violated the oath, and the march was resumed. Kamehameha 
drove them back step by step ; the priests fought in the front 
rank and exhorted them both by voice and inspiriting example 
to remember their oath — to die, ii need be, but never cross the 
fatal line. The struggle was manfully maintained, but at last 
the chief priest fell, pierced to the heart with a spear, and the 
unlucky omen fell like a blight upon the brave souls at his 
back ; with a triumphant shout the invaders pressed forward — 
the line was crossed — the offended gods deserted the despairing 
army, and, accepting the doom their perjury had brought upon 
them, they broke and fled over the plain where Honolulu stands 
now — up the beautiful luiuanu Yalley — paused a moment, 
hemmed in by j)recipitous mountains on either hand and the 
frightful precipice of the Pari in front, and then were driven 
over — a sheer plunge of six hundred feet ! 

The story is pretty enough, but Mr. Jarves' excellent history 
says the Oahuans were intrenched in Nuuanu Yalley ; that 



AN APPRECIATIVE HORSE, 



467 



Kamehameha ousted them, routed them, pursued them up the 
valley and drove them over the precipice. He makes no men- 
tion of our bone-yard at all in his book. 

Impressed by the profound silence and repose that rested 
over the beautiful landscape, and being, as usual, in the rear, I 
gave voice to my thoughts. I said : 

" What a picture is here slumbering in the solemn glory of 
the moon ! How strong the rugged outlines of the dead vol- 
cano stand out against the clear sky ! What a snowy fringe 
marks the bursting of the surf over the long, curved reef! 
How calmly the dim city sleeps yonder in the plain ! How 
soft the shadows lie upon the stately mountains that border the 
dream-haunted Mauoa Valley ! What a grand pyramid of bil- 
lowy clouds towers above the storied Pari ! How the grim 
warriors of the past seem nocking in ghostly squadrons to their 
ancient battlefield again — how the wails of the dying well up 
from the " 

At this point the horse called Oahu sat down in the sand. 
Sat down to listen, I 
suppose. Never mind 
what he heard, I stop- 
ped apostroph i sing 
and convinced him 
that I was not a man 
to allow contempt of 
Court on the part of 
a horse. I broke the 
back-bone of a Chief 
over his rump and 
set out to join the 
cavalcade again. sat down to listen. 

Very considerably fagged out we arrived in town at 

9 o'clock at night, myself in the lead — for when my horse 

finally came to understand that he was homeward bound and 

hadn't far to go, he turned his attention strictly to business. 

This is a good time to drop in a paragraph of information. 




463 CONVENIENT BROTHERS. 

There is no regular livery stable in Honolulu, or, indeed, in any 
part of the kingdom of Hawaii ; therefore unless you are acquaint- 
ed with wealthy residents (who all have good horses), you must 
hire animals of the wretchedest description from the Kanakas, 
(i. e. natives.) Any horse you hire, even though it be from a white 
man, is not often of much account, because it will be brought 
in for you from some ranch, and has necessarily been leading 
a hard life. If the Kanakas who have been caring for him 
(inveterate riders they are) have not ridden him half to death 
every day themselves, you can depend upon it they have been 
doing the same thing by proxy, by clandestinely hiring him 
out. At least, so I am informed. The result is, that no horse 
has a chance to eat, drink, rest, recuperate, or look well or feel 
well, and so strangers go about the Islands mounted as I waa 
to-day. 

In hiring a horse from a Kanaka, you must have all your 
eyes about you, because you can rest satisfied that you are dealing 
with a shrewd unprincipled rascal. You may leave your door 
open and your trunk unlocked as long as you please, and he 
will not meddle with your property ; he has no important vices 
and no inclination to commit robbery on a large scale ; but if 
he can get ahead of you in the horse business, he will take a 
genuine delight in doing it. This trait is characteristic of horse 
jockeys, the world over, is it not ? He will overcharge you if 
he can ; he will hire you a fine-looking horse at night (any- 
body's — may be the King's, if the royal steed be in conve- 
nient view), and bring you the mate to my Oahu in the morn- 
ing, and contend that it is the same animal. If you make trou- 
ble, he will get out by saying it was not himself who made 
the bargain with you, but his brother, " who went out in the 
country this morning." They have always got a " brother " to 
shift the responsibility upon. A victim said to one of these fel- 
lows one day : 

" But I know I hired the horse of you, because I noticed 
that scar on your cheek." 



AN UNWILLING BORROWER 



469 



The reply was not bad: "Oh, yes — yes — my brother all 
same — we twins !" 

A friend of mine, J. Smith, hired a horse yesterday, the 




MY BROTHER— WE TWINS. 

Kanaka warranting him to be in excellent condition. Smith 
had a saddle and blanket of his own, and he ordered the Kan- 
aka to put these on the horse. The Kanaka protested that he 
was perfectly willing to trust the gentleman with the saddle 
that was already on the animal," but Smith refused to use it. 
The change was made ; then Smith noticed that the Kanaka 
had only changed the saddles, and had left the original blanket 
on the horse ; he said he forgot to change the blankets, and so, 



470 



A NEW JOCKEY TRICK 




EXTRAORDINARY CAPERS. 



to cut the bother short, Smith mounted and rode away. The 
horse went lame a mile from town, and afterward got to cutting 
up some extraordinary capers. Smith got down and took off 
the saddle, but the blanket stuck fast to the horse — glued to a 

procession of raw places. 
The Kanaka's mysterious 
conduct stood explained. 

Another friend of mine 
bought a pretty good horse 
from a native, a day or two 
ago, after a tolerably thor- 
ough examination of the 
animal. He discovered to- 
day that the horse was as 
blind as a bat, in one eye. 
He meant to have examined 
that eye, and came home 
with a general notion that he had done it ; but he remem- 
bers now that every time he made the attempt his attention 
was called to something else by his victimizer. 

One more instance, and then I will pass to something else. 
I am informed that when a certain Mr. L., a visiting stranger, was 
here, he bought a pair of very respectable-looking match horses 
from a native. They were in a little stable with a partition 
through the middle of it — one horse in each apartment. Mr. 
L. examined one of them critically through a window (the 
Kanaka's " brother" having gone to the country with the key), 
and then went around the house and examined the other through 
a window on the other side. He said it was the neatest match 
he had ever seen, and paid for the horses on the spot. Where- 
upon the Kanaka departed to join his brother in the country. 
The fellow had shamefully swindled L. There was only one 
" match " horse, and he had examined his starboard side through 
one window and his port side through another ! I decline to 
believe this story, but I give it because it is worth something 
as a fanciful illustration of a fixed fact — namely, that the Kan- 



SANDWICH ISLAND HAY MERCHANT. 



471 



aka horse-jockey is fertile in invention and elastic in conscience. 
You can buy a pretty good horse for forty or fifty dollars, 
and a good enough horse for all practical purposes for two dol- 
lars and a half. I estimate " Oahu" to be worth somewhere in 
the neighborhood of thirty-five cents. A good deal better animal 
than he is was sold here day before yesterday for a dollar and sev- 
enty-five cents, and sold again to-day for two dollars and twenty- 
five cents ; Williams bought a handsome and lively little pony yes- 
terday for ten dollars ; and about the best common horse on the 
island (and he is a really good one) sold yesterday, with Mexican 
saddle and bridle, for seventy dollars — a horse which is well and 
widely known, and greatly respected for his speed, good disposi- 




A LOAD OF HAY. 



tion and everlasting bottom. Y on give your horse a little grain 
once a day ; it comes from San Francisco, and is worth about 
two cents a pound ; and you give him as much hay as he wants ; it 
is cut and brought to the market by natives, and is not very good 
it is baled into long, round bundles, about the size of a large 



472 



GOOD COUNTRY FOR HORSE LOVERS. 



man ; one of them is stuck by the middle on each end of a six- 
foot pole, and the Kanaka shoulders the pole and walks about 
the streets between the upright bales in search of customers. 
These hay bales, thus carried, have a general resemblance to a 
colossal capital H. 

The hay-bundles cost twenty-five cents apiece, and one will 
last a horse about a day. You can get a horse for a song, a 
week's hay for another song, and you can turn your animal loose 
among the luxuriant grass in your neighbor's broad front yard 
without a song at all — you do it at midnight, and stable the 
beast again before morning. You have been at no expense thus 
far, but when you come to buy a saddle and bridle they will cost 
you from twenty to thirty-five dollars. You can hire a horse, 
saddle and bridle at from seven to ten dollars a week, and the 
owner will take care of them at his own expense. 

It is time to close this day's record — bed time. As I prepare 
for sleep, a rich voice rises out of the still night, and, far as this 
ocean rock is toward the ends of the earth, I recognize a famil- 
iar home air. But the words seem somewhat out of joint : 
" Waikiki lantoni ce Kaa hooly hooly wawhoo." 

Translated, that means " When we were marching through 
Georgia." 




CHAPTER LXVL 

PASSING through the market place we saw that feature of 
Honolulu under its most favorable auspices — that is, in 
the full glory of Saturday afternoon, which is a festive day 
with the natives. The native girls by twos and threes and 
parties of a dozen, and sometimes in whole platoons and com- 
panies, went cantering up and down the neighboring streets 
astride of fleet but homely horses, and with their guady riding 
habits streaming like banners behind them. Such a troop of 
free and easy riders, in their natural home, the saddle, makes 
a gay and graceful spectacle. The riding habit I speak of is 
simply a long, broad scarf, like a tavern table cloth brilliantly 
colored, wrapped around the loins once, then apparently passed 
between the limbs and each end thrown backward over the 
same, and floating and flapping behind on both sides beyond 
the horse's tail like a couple of fancy flags ; then, slipping the 
stirrup-irons between her toes, the girl throws her ahest for 
ward, sits up like a Major General and goes sweeping by like 
the wind. 

The girls put on all the finery they can on Saturday afternoon 
— fine black silk robes ; flowing red ones that nearly put your 
eyes out ; others as white as snow ; still others that discount 
the rainbow ; and they wear their hair in nets, and trim their 
jaunty hats with fresh flowers, and encircle their dusky throats 
with home-made necklaces of the brilliant vermillion-tinted 
blossom of the ohia ; and they fill the markets and the adjacent 
streets with their bright presences, and smell like a rag factory 
on fire with their offensive cocoanut oil. 



474 



SIGHTS ON THE ISLANDS. 



Occasionally you see a heathen from the snnny isles away 
down in the South Seas, with his face and neck tatooed till he 
looks like the customary mendicant from Washoe who has been 
blown up in a mine. Some are tattooed a dead blue color down 
to the upper lip— masked, as it were— leaving the natural light 
yellow skin of Micronesia unstained from thence down ; some 
with broad marks drawn down from hair to neck, on both sides 
of the face, and a strip of the original yellow skin, two inches 




SANDWICH ISLAND GIRLS. 

wide, down the center— a gridiron with a spoke broken out; 
and some with the entire face discolored with the popular 
mortification tint, relieved only by one or two thin, wavy 
threads of natural yellow running across the face from ear to 
ear, and eyes twinkling out of this darkness, from under shad- 
owing hat-brims, like stars in the dark of the moon. 

Moving among the stirring crowds, you come to the poi 
merchants, squatting in the shade on their hams, in true native 
fashion, and surrounded by purchasers. (The Sandwich Wand- 



CHIEF ARTICLE OF FOOD. 



475 



^-^^^S^£^¥: 




era always squat on their hams, and who knows but they may 
be the old original " ham sandwiches ?" The thought is preg- 
nant with interest.) The poi looks like common flour paste, 
and is kept in large bowls form- 
ed of a species of gourd, and 
capable of holding from one to 
three or four gallons. Poi is 
the chief article of food among 
the natives, and is prepared 
from the taro plant. The taro 
root looks like a thick, or, if you 
please, a corpulent sweet potato, 
in shape, but is of a light purple 
color when boiled. When boil- 
ed it answers as a passable sub- 
stitute for bread. The buck 
Kanakas bake it under ground, 
then mash it up well with a 
heavy lava pestle, mix water 
with it until it becomes a paste, set it aside and let it ferment, 
and then it is poi — and an unseductive mixture it is, almost 
tasteless before it ferments and too sour for a luxury afterward. 
But nothing is more nutritious. When solely used, however, 
it produces acrid humors, a fact which sufficiently accounts for 
the humorous character of the Kanakas. I think there must 
be as much of a knack in handling poi as there is in eating 
with chopsticks. The forefinger is thrust into the mess and 
stirred quickly round several times and drawn as quickly out, 
thickly coated, just as it it were poulticed ; the head is thrown 
back, the finger inserted in the mouth and the delicacy stripped 
off and swallowed — the eye closing gently, meanwhile, in a 
languid sort of ecstasy. Many a different finger goes into the 
same bowl and many a different kind of dirt and shade and 
quality of flavor is added to the virtues of its contents. 

Around a small shanty was collected a crowd of natives buy- 
ing the wwa root. It is said that but for the use of this root 
the destruction of the people in former times by certain imported 



ORIGINAL HAM SANDWICH. 



47G GRAND GALA DAY. 

diseases would have been far greater than it was, and by others 
it is said that this is merely a fancy. All agree that poi will re- 
juvenate a man who is used up and his vitality almost annihilated 
by hard drinking, and that in some kinds of diseases it will 
restore health after all medicines have failed ; but all are not 
willing to allow to the awa the virtues claimed for it. The 
natives manufacture an intoxicating drink from it which is fear- 
ful in its effects when persistently indulged in. It covers the 
body with dry, white scales, inflames the eyes, and causes pre- 
mature decrepitude. Although the man before whose estab- 
lishment we stopped has to pay a Government license of eight 
hundred dollars a year for the exclusive right to sell awa root, 
it is said that he makes a small fortune every twelve-month; 
while saloon keepers, who pay a thousand dollars a year for the 
privilege of retailing whiskey, etc., only make a bare living. 

We found the fish market crowded ; for the native is very fond 
of fish, and eats the article raw and alive ! Let us change the 
subject. 

In old times here Saturday was a grand gala day indeed. 
All the native population of the town forsook their labors, and 
those of the surrounding coimtry journeyed to the city. Then 
the white folks had to stay indoors, for every street was so 
packed with charging cavaliers and cavalieresses that it was 
next to impossible to thread one's way through the cavalcades 
without getting crippled. 

At night they feasted and the girls danced the lascivious hu- 
la hula — a dance that is said to exhibit the very perfection of 
educated n motion of limb and arm, hand, head and body, and 
the exactest uniformity of movement and accuracy of " time." 
It was performed by a circle of girls with no raiment on them 
to speak of, who went through an infinite variety of motions 
and figures without prompting, and yet so true was their " time," 
and in such perfect concert did they move that when they were 
placed in a straight line, hands, arms, bodies, limbs and heads 
waved, swayed, gesticulated, bowed, stooped, whirled, squirmed, 
twisted and undulated as if they were part and parcel of a single 
individual ; and it was difficult to believe they were not moved 
in a body by some exquisite piece of mechanism. 



UNIVERSAL CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. 477 

Of late years, however, Saturday has lost most of its quondam 
gala features. This weekly stampede of the natives interfered 
too much with labor and the interests of the white folks, and 
by sticking in a law here, and preaching a sermon there, and 
by various other means, they gradually broke it up. The de- 
moralizing hula hula was forbidden to be performed, save at 
night, with closed doors, in presence of few spectators, and only 
by permission duly procured from the authorities and the pay- 
ment of ten dollars for the same. There are few girls now-a- 
days able to dance this ancient national dance in the highest 
perfection of the art. 

The missionaries have christianized and educated all the na- 
tives. They all belong to the Church, and there is not one of 
them, above the age of eight years, but can read and write 
with facility in the native tongue. It is the most universally 
educated race of people outside of China. They have any 
quantity of books, printed in the Kanaka language, and all the 
natives are fond of reading. They are inveterate church-goers 
— nothing can keep them away. All this ameliorating culti- 
vation has at last built up in the native women a profound 
respect for chastity — in other people. Perhaps that is enough 
to say on that head. The national sin will die out when the 
race does, but perhaps not earlier. — But doubtless this purifying 
is not far off, when we reflect that contact with civilization and 
the whites has reduced the native population from four hund- 
red thousand (Captain Cook's estimate,) to fifty-five thousand 
in something over eighty years ! 

Society is a queer medley in this notable missionary, whaling 
and governmental centre. If you get into conversation with 
a stranger and experience that natural desire to know what sort 
of ground you are treading on by finding out what manner of 
man your stranger is, strike out boldly and address him as 
" Captain." Watch him narrowly, and if you see by his coun- 
tenance that you are on the wrong tack, ask him where he 
preaches. It is a safe bet that he is either a missionary or 
captain of a whaler. I am now personally acquainted with 
seventy-two captains and ninety-six missionaries. The captains 



±78 



CATS AND OFFICIALS. 



and ministers form one-half of the population ; the third fourth 
is composed of common Kanakas and mercantile foreigners 
and their families, and the final fourth is made np of high offi- 
cers of the Hawaiian Government. And there are just about 
cats enough for three apiece all around. 

A solemn stranger met me in the suburbs the other day, and 



" Good morning, your reverence. Preach in the stone 
church yonder, no doubt ?" 

" No, I don't. I'm not a preacher." 

" Keally, I beg your pardon, Captain. I trust you had a 
good season. How much oil " — 

" Oil ? What do you take me for % I'm not a whaler." 

" Oh, I beg a thousand pardons, your Excellency. Major 
General in the household troops, no doubt ? Minister of the 




"I KISSED HIM FOB HIS MOTHER." 

Interior, likely ? Secretary of war ? First Gentleman of the 
Bed-chamber ? Commissioner of the Eoyal " — 

" Stuff! I'm no official. I'm not connected in any way 
with the Government." 



AN OVERWHELMING DISCOVERY. 



479 



" Bless my life ! Then, who the mischief are you ? what 
the mischief are you ? and how the mischief did you get here, 
and where in thunder did you come from ? " 

" I'm only a private personage — an unassuming stranger — 
lately arrived from America." 

" No ? Not a missionary ! Not a whaler ! not a member 
of his Majesty's Government ! not even Secretary of the Navy ! 
Ah, Heaven ! it is too blissful to be true ; alas, I do but dream. 
And yet that noble, honest countenance — those oblique, ingen- 
uous eyes — that massive head, incapable of — of — anything ; 
your hand ; give me your hand, bright waif. Excuse these 
tears. For sixteen weary years I have yearned for a moment 
like this, and " — 

Here his feelings were too much for him, and he swooned 
away. I pitied this poor creature from the bottom of my heart. 
I was deeply moved. I shed a few tears on him and kissed 
him for his mother. I then took .what small change he had 
and " shoved." 




CHAPTER LXYII. 

I STILL quote from my journal : 
I found the national Legislature to consist of half a dozen 
white men and some thirty or forty natives. It was a dark 
assemblage. The nobles and Ministers (about a dozen of them 
altogether) occupied the extreme left of the hall, with David 
Kalakaua (the King's Chamberlain) and Prince William at the 
head. The President of the Assembly, His Royal Highness 
M. Keknanaoa,* and the Yice President (the latter a white man,) 
sat in the pulpit, if I may so term it. 

The President is the King's father. He is an erect, strongly 
built, massive featured, white-haired, tawny old gentleman of 
eighty years of age or thereabouts. He was simply but well 
dressed, in a blue cloth coat and white vest, and white panta- 
loons, without spot, dust or blemish upon them. He bears 
himself with a calm, stately dignity, and is a man of noble 
presence. He was a young man and a distinguished warrior 
under that terrific fighter, Kamehameha I., more than half a 
century ago. A knowledge of his career suggested some such 
thought as this : " This man, naked as the day he was born, 
and war-club and spear in hand, has charged at the head of a 
horde of savages against other hordes of savages more than a 
generation and a half ago,- and reveled in slaughter and carnage ; 
has worshipped wooden images on his devout knees ; has seen 
hundreds of his race offered up in heathen temples as sacrifices 

"Since dead. 



PRATERS FOR AN ENEMY. 481 

to wooden idols, at a time when no missionary's foot had ever 
pressed this soil, and he had never heard of the white man's 
God ; has believed his enemy could secretly pray him to death ; 
has seen the day, in his childhood, when it was a crime pun- 
ishable by death for a man to eat with his wife, or for a plebeian 
to let his shadow fall upon the King — and now look at him ; an 
educated Christian ; neatly and handsomely dressed ; a high- 
minded, elegant gentleman ; a traveler, in some degree, and one 
who has been the honored guest of royalty in Europe ; a man 
practiced in holding the reins of an enlightened government, 
and well versed in the politics of his country and in general, 
practical information. Look at him, sitting there presiding 
over the deliberations of a legislative body, among whom are 
white men — a grave, dignified, statesmanlike personage, and as 
seemingly natural and fitted to the place as if he had been 
born in it and had never been out of it in his life time. How 
the experiences of this old man's eventful life shame the cheap 
inventions of romance !" 

Kekuanaoa is not of the blood royal. He derives his princely 
rank from his wife, who was a daughter of Kamehameha the 
Great. Under other monarchies the male line takes precedence 
of the female in tracing genealogies, but here the opposite is 
the case — the female line takes precedence. Their reason for 
this is exceedingly sensible, and I recommend it to the aristocracy 
of Europe : They say it is easy to know who a man's mother 
was, but, etc., etc. 

The christianizing of the natives has hardly even weakened 
some of their barbarian superstitions, much less destroyed them. 
I have just referred to one of these. It is still a popular belief 
that if your enemy can get hold of any article belonging to 
you he can get down on his knees over it and pray you to death. 
Therefore many a native gives up and dies merely because he 
imagines that some enemy is putting him through a course of 
damaging prayer. This praying an individual to death seems 
absurd enough at a first glance, but then when we call to mind 
31f 



4S2 WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND ROMANTIC FASHIONS. 

some of the pulpit efforts of certain of our own ministers the 
thing looks plausible. 

In former times, among the Islanders, not only a plurality 
of wives was customary, but & plurality of husbands likewise. 
Some native women of noble rank had as many as six husbands. 
A woman thus supplied did not reside with all her husbands at 
once, but lived several months with each in turn. An under- 
stood sign hung at her door _ 
during these months. When || 
the sign was taken down, % 
it meant " Next." 1 

In those days woman was !g 
rigidly taught to "know i 
her place." Her place was || 
to do all the work, take all jjj 
the cuffs, provide all the jjj 
food, and content herself 
with what was left after her 
lord had finished his din- 
ner. She was not only for- 

, . , AN BNBMT'S PKATBB. 

bidden, by ancient law, and 

under penalty of death, to eat with her husband or enter a ca- 
noe, but was debarred, under the same penalty, from eating 
bananas, pine-apples, oranges and other choice fruits at any 
time or in any place. She had to confine herself pretty strictly 
to " poi " and hard work. These poor ignorant heathen seem 
to have had a sort of groping idea of what came of woman eat- 
ing fruit in the garden of Eden, and they did not choose to 
take any more chances. But the missionaries broke up this 
satisfactory arrangement of things. They liberated woman and 
made her the equal of man. 

The natives had a romantic fashion of burying some of their 
children alive when the family became larger than necessary. 
The missionaries interfered in this matter too, and stopped it. 

To this day the natives are able to lie down and die when- 
ever they want to, whether there is anything the matter with 



THE SHORN IDOL. 483 

them or not. If a Kanaka takes a notion to die, that is the 
end of him ; nobody can persuade him to hold on ; all the doc- 
tors in the world could not save him. 

A luxury which they enjoy more than anything else, is a 
large funeral. If a person wants to get rid of a troublesome 
native, it is only necessary to promise him a fine funeral and 
name the hour and he will be on hand to the minute — at least 
his remains will. 

All the natives are Christians, now, but many of them still 
desert to the Great Shark God for temporary succor in time 
of trouble. An irruption of the great volcano of Kilauea, or 
an earthquake, always brings a deal of latent loyalty to the 
Great Shark God to the surface. It is common report that the 
King, educated, cultivated and refined Christian gentleman as 
he undoubtedly is, still turns to the idols of his fathers for help 
when disaster threatens. A planter caught a shark, and one 
of his christianized natives testified his emancipation from the 
thrall of ancient superstition by assisting to dissect the shark 
after a fashion forbidden by his abandoned creed. But remorse 
shortly began to torture him. He grew moody and sought 
solitude ; brooded over his sin, refused food, and finally said he 
must die and ought to die, for he had sinned against the Great 
Shark God and could never know peace any more. He was 
proof against persuasion and ridicule, and in the course of a 
day or two took to his bed and died, although he showed no 
symptom of disease. His young daughter followed his lead 
and suffered a like fate within the week. Superstition is in- 
grained in the native blood and bone and it is only natural 
that it should crop out in time of distress. Wherever one goes 
in the Islands, he will find small piles of stones by the wayside, 
covered with leafy offerings, placed there by the natives to ap- 
pease evil spirits or honor local deities belonging to the my- 
thology of former days. 

In the rural districts of any of the Islands, the traveler hourly 
comes upon parties of dusky maidens bathing in the streams 
or in the sea without any clothing on and exhibiting no very 



±§± 



THE DESIRE FOR DRESS AWAKENED. 



intemperate zeal in the matter of biding their nakedness. When 
the missionaries first took up their residence in Honolulu, the 
native women would pay their families frequent friendly visits, 
day by day, not even clothed with a blush. It was found a 
hard matter to convince them that this was rather indelicate. 
Finally the missionaries provided them with long, loose calico 
robes, and that ended the difficulty — for the women would 
troop through the town, stark naked, with their robes folded 
under their arms, march to the missionary houses and then 




VISITING THE MISSIONARIES. 



proceed to dress ! — The natives .soon manifested a strong pro- 
clivity for clothing, but it was shortly apparent that they only 
wanted it for grandeur. The missionaries imported a quantity 
of hats, bonnets, and other male and female wearing apparel, 
instituted a general distribution, and begged the people not to 
come to church naked, next Sunday, as usual. And they did 
not ; but the national spirit of unselfishness led them to divide 
up with neighbors who were not at the distribution, and next 
Sabbath the poor preachers could hardly keep countenance be- 
fore their vast congregations. In the midst of the reading of 



FULL DRESS— NOT PARIS STYLE. 



485 



a hymn a brown, stately dame would sweep up the aisle with 
a world of airs, with nothing in the world on but a " stovepipe " 
hat and a pair of cheap gloves ; another dame would follow j 
tricked out in a man's shirt, and nothing else ; another one 
would enter with a flourish, with simply the sleeves of a bright 
calico dress tied around her waist and the rest of the garment 
dragging behind like a peacock's tail off duty ; a stately " buck" 
Kanaka would stalk in with a woman's bonnet on, wrong side 
before — only this, and nothing more ; after him would stride 
his fellow, with the legs of a pair of pantaloons tied around his 
neck, the rest of his person untrammeled ; in his rear would 
come another gentleman simply gotten up in a fiery neck-tie 
and a striped vest. The poor creatures were beaming with 




FULL CHURCH DRESS. 

3omplacency and wholly unconscious of any absurdity in their 
appearance. They gazed at each other with happy admiration, 
and it was plain to see that the young girls were taking note 
of what each other had on, as naturally as if they had always 
lived in a land of Bibles and knew what churches were made 



4$e 



A GAME OF EMPIRE 



for ; here was the evidence of 



a dawning 



civilization. The 



spectacle which the congregation presented was so extraordi- 
nary and withal so moving, that the missionaries found it dif- 
ficult to keep to the text and go on with the services ; and by 
and by when the simple children of the sun began a general 
swapping of garments in open meeting and produced some 
irresistibly grotesque eifects in the course of re-dressing, there 
was nothing for it but to cut the thing short with the benedic- 
tion and dismiss the fantastic assemblage. 

In our country, children play " keep house ;" and in the same 
high-sounding but miniature way the grown folk here, with 
the poor little material of slender territory and meagre popu- 
lation, play " empire." There is his royal Majesty the King, 
with a New York detective's income of thirty or thirty-five 
thousand dollars a year from the " royal civil list " and the 
" royal domain." He lives in a two-story frame " palace." 
And there is the " royal family " — the customary hive of 

royal brothers, sisters, cous- 
ins and other noble drones 
and vagrants usual to mon- 
archy, — all with a spoon in 
the national pap-dish, and 
all bearing such titles as his 
or her Royal Highness the 
Prince or Princess So-and-so. 
Few of them can carry their- 
royal splendors far enough 
to ride in carriages, however ; 
they sport the economical 
Kanaka horse or " hoof it "* 
with the plebeians. 
Then there is his Excellency the "royal Chamberlain" — a 
sinecure, for his majesty dresses himself with his own hands, 
except when he is ruralizing at Waikiki and then he requires 
no dressing. 

Next we have his Excellency the Commander-in-chief of the 







PLAY IN tf EMKUiH;. 



*Missionary phrase. 



ROYAL OFFICERS AND SALARIES. 487 

Household Troops, whose forces consist of. about the number 
of soldiers usually placed under a corporal in other lands. 

Next comes the royal Steward and the Grand Equerry in 
"Waiting — high dignitaries with modest salaries and little to do. 

Then we have his Excellency the First Gentleman of the 
Bed-chamber — an office as easy as it is magnificent. 

Next we come to his Excellency the Prime Minister, a ren- 
egade American from New Hampshire, all jaw, vanity, bom- 
bast and ignorance, a lawyer of " shyster " calibre, a fraud by 
nature, a humble worshiper of the sceptre above him, a reptile 
never tired of sneering at the land of his birth or glorifying 
the ten-acre kingdom that has adopted him — salary, $4,000 a 
year, vast consequence, and no perquisites. 

Then we have his Excellency the Imperial Minister of Fi- 
nance, who handles a million dollars of public money a year, 
sends in his annual " budget " with great ceremony, talks pro- 
digiously of " finance," suggests imposing schemes for paying 
off the " national debt " (of $150,000,) and does it all for $4,000 
a year and unimaginable glory. 

Next we have his Excellency the Minister of War, who 
holds sway over the royal armies — they consist of two hundred 
and thirty uniformed Kanakas, mostly Brigadier Generals, and 
if the country ever gets into trouble with a foreign power we 
shall probably hear from them. I knew an American whose 
copper-plate visiting card bore this impressive legend : " Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel in the Royal Infantry. To say that he was 
proud of this distinction is stating it but tamely. The Minister 
of War has also in his charge some venerable swivels on Punch- 
Bowl Hill wherewith royal salutes are fired when foreign ves- 
sels of war enter the port. 

Next comes his Excellency the Minister of the Navy — a 
nabob who rules the " royal fleet," (a steam-tug and a sixty -ton 
schooner.) 

And next comes his Grace the Lord Bishop of Honolulu, 
the chief dignitary of the " Established Church " — for when 
the American Presbyterian missionaries had completed the 



4SS 



FOREIGN AMBASSADORS. 



reduction of the nation to a compact condition of Christianity, 
native royalty stepped in and erected the grand- dignity of an 
" Established (Episcopal) Church " over it, and imported a 
cheap ready-made Bishop from England to take charge. The 
chagrin of the missionaries has never been comprehensively 
expressed, to this day, profanity not being admissible. 

Next comes his Excellency the Minister of Public Instruc- 
tion. 

Next, their Excellencies the Governors of Oahu, Hawaii, 
etc., and after them a string of High Sheriffs and other small 
fry too numerous for computation. 

Then there are their Excellencies the Envoy Extraordinary 
and Minister Plenipotentiary of his Imperial Majesty the Em- 




KOVALTY AisiJ 



iTELLITES. 



peror of the French ; her British Majesty's Minister; the Min 
ister Kesident, of the United States ; and some six or eight 
representatives of other foreign nations, all with sounding titles, 
imposing dignity and prodigious but economical state. 



OVERWHELMING MAGNIFICENCE. 



489 



Imagine all this grandeur in a play-house " kingdom " whose 
population falls absolutely short of sixty thousand souls ! 

The people are so accustomed to nine-jointed titles and colos- 
sal magnates that a foreign prince makes very little more stir 
in Honolulu than a Western Congressman does in New York. 

And let it be borne in mind that there is a strictly defined 
" court costume " of so " stunning " a nature that it would 
make the clown in a circus look tame and commonplace by 
comparison ; and each Hawaiian official dignitary has a gorgeous 
vari-colored, gold-laced uniform peculiar to his office — no two 
of them are alike, and it is hard to tell which one is the " loud- 
est." The King had a " drawing-room " at stated intervals, 
like other monarchs, and when these varied uniforms congre- 
gate there weak-eyed people have to contemplate the spectacle 
through smoked glass. Is there not a gratifying contrast be- 
tween this latter-day exhibition and the one the ancestors of 
some of these magnates afforded the missionaries the Sunday 
after the old-time distribution of clothing? Behold what reli- 
gion and civilization have wrought ! 




>*fcWi«*,« 



CHAPTER LXVIII. 

WHILE I was in Honolulu I witnessed the ceremonious 
funeral of the King's sister, her Koyal Highness the 
Princess Yictoria. According to the royal custom, the remains 
had lain in state at the palace thirty days, watched day and 
night by a guard of honor. And during all that time a great 
multitude of natives from the several islands had kept the pal- 
ace grounds well crowded and had made the place a pandemo- 
nium every night with their howlings and wailings, beating of 
tom-toms and dancing of the (at other times) forbidden " hula- 
hula" by half-clad maidens to the music of songs of question- 
able decency chanted in honor of the deceased. The printed 
programme of the funeral procession interested me at the 
time ; and after what I have just said of Hawaiian grandilo- 
quence in the matter of "playing empire," I am persuaded 
that a perusal of it may interest the reader : 

After reading the long list of dignitaries, etc., and remembering the sparseness 
of the population, one is almost inclined to wonder where the material for that 
portion of the procession devoted to " Hawaiian Population Generally " is going 
to be procured : 

Undertaker. 

Royal School. Kawaiahao School. Roman Catholic School. Miaemse School. 

Honolulu Fire Department. 

Mechanics' Benefit Union. 

Attending Physicians. 

Knonohikis (Superintendents) of the Crown Lands, Konohikis of the Private Lands 

of His Majesty Konohikis of Private Lands of Her late Royal Highness. 



FUNERAL PROCESSION. 491 

Governor of Oaku and Staff. 

Hulumanu (Military Company). 

Household Troops. 

The Prince of Hawaii's Own (Military Company). 

The King's household servants. 

Servants of Her late Royal Highness. 

Protestant Clergy. The Clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. 

His Lordship Louis Maigret, The Right Rev. Bishop of Arathea, Vicar-Apostolic 

of the Hawaiian Islands. 

The Clergy of the Hawaiian Reformed Catholic Church. 

His Lordship the Right Rev. Bishop of Honolulu. 

I 3 

A 2 * • m GG ST e * 

I a d | [HE ABSK]i I p p I 

,, 3 & *• ■ p .s ? 9 

I *£. 

A 9 

Her Majesty Queen Emma's Carriage. 

His Majesty's Staff. 

Carriage of Her late Royal Highness. 

Carriage of Her Majesty the Queen Dowager. 

The King's Chancellor. 

Cabinet Ministers. 

Bis Excellency the Minister Resident of the United States. 

H. I. M's Commissioner. 

H. B. M's Acting Commissioner. 

Judges of Supreme Court. 

Privy Councillors. 

Members of Legislative Assembly. 

Consular Corps. 

Circuit Judges. 

Clerks of Government Departments. 

Members of the Bar. 

Collector General, Custom-house Officers and Officers of the Customs. 

Marshal and Sheriffs of the different Islands. 

King's Yeomanry. 

Foreign Residents. 

Ahahui Kaahumanu. 

Hawaiian Population Generally. 

Hawaiian Cavalry. 

Police Force. 

*Ranks of long-handled mops made of gaudy feathers — sacred to royalty* They 
are stuck in the ground around the tomb and left there. 



402 



POMP AT THE TOMB, 



I resume my journal at the point where the procession 
arrived at the royal mausoleum : 

As the procession filed through the gate, the military deployed handsomely to 
the right and left and formed an avenue through which the long column of 
mourners passed to the tomb. The coffin was borne through the door of the mau- 
soleum, followed by the King and his chiefs, the great officers of the kingdom, 
foreign Consuls, Embassadors and distinguished guests (Burlingame and General 
Van Valkenburgh). Several of the kahilis were then fastened to a frame-work in 
front of the tomb, there to remain until they decay and fall to pieces, or, forestall- 
ing this, until another scion of royalty dies. At this point of the proceedings the 
multitude set up such a heart-broken wailing as I hope never to hear again. The 
soldiers fired three volleys of musketry — the wailing being previously silenced to 




A MODERN FUNERAL 

permit of the guns being heard. His Highness Prince William, in a showy mili- 
tary uniform (the " true prince," this — scion of the house over-thrown by the pres- 
ent dynasty — he was formerly betrothed to the Princess but was not allowed to 
marry her), stood guard and paced back and forth within the door. The privileged 
few who followed the coffin into the mausoleum remained sometime, but the King 
soon came out and stood in the door and near one side of it. A stranger could 
have guessed his rank (although he was so simply and unpretentiously dressed) 
by the profound deference paid him by all persons in his vicinity ; by seeing his 
high officers receive his quiet orders and suggestions with bowed and uncovered 
heads ; and by observing how careful thoBe persons who came out of the mauso- 



A STRIKING CONTRAST. 493 

leum were to avoid " crowding " him (although there was room enough in the door, 
way for a wagon to pass, for that matter) ; how respectfully they edged out side- 
ways, Bcraping their backs against the wall and always presenting a front view of 
their persons to his Majesty, and never putting their hats on until they were well 
out of the royal presence. 

He was dressed entirely in black — dress-coat and silk hat — and looked rather 
democratic in the midst of the showy uniforms about him. On his breast he wore 
a large gold star, which was half hidden by the lappel of his coat. He remained 
at the door a half hour, and occasionally gave an order to the men who were erect- 
ing the kahilis before the tomb. He had the good taste to make one of them sub- 
stitute black crape for the ordinary hempen rope he was about to tie one of them 
to the frame-work with. Finally he entered his carriage and drove away, and the 
populace shortly began to drop into his wake. While he was in view there was 
but one man who attracted more attention than himself, and that was Harris (the 
Yankee Prime Minister). This feeble personage had crape enough around his hat 
to express the grief of an entire nation, and as usual he neglected no opportunity 
of making himself conspicuous and exciting the admiration of the simple Kanakas. 
Oh ! noble ambition of this modern Richelieu ! 

It is interesting to contrast the funeral ceremonies of the 
Princess Victoria with those of her noted ancestor Kameha- 
meha the Conqueror, who died fifty years ago — in 1819, the 
year before the first missionaries came. 

"On the 8th of May, 1819, at the age of sixty-six, he died, as he had lived, in 
the faith of his country. It was his misfortune not to have come in contact 
with men who could have rightly influenced his religious aspirations. Judged by 
his advantages and compared with the most eminent of his countrymen he may be 
justly styled not only great, but good. To this day his memory warms the heart and 
elevates the national feelings of Hawaiians. They are proud of their old warrior 
King ; they love his name ; his deeds form their historical age ; and an enthusiasm 
everywhere prevails, shared even by foreigners who knew his worth, that consti- 
tutes the firmest pillar of the throne of his dynasty. 

" In lieu of human victims (the custom of that age), a sacrifice of three hundred 
dogs attended his obsequies — no mean holocaust when their national value and 
the estimation in which they were held are considered. The bones of Kameha- 
meha, after being kept for a while, were so carefully concealed that all knowledge 
of their final resting place is now lost. There was a proverb current among the 
common people that the bones of a cruel King could not be hid ; they made fish- 
hooks and arrows of them, upon which, in using them, they vented their abhor- 
rence of his memory in bitter execrations." 

The account of the circumstances of his death, as written 
by the native historians, is full of minute detail, but there is 
scarcely a line of it which does not mention or illustrate some 



4:94 A SICK MONARCH. 

by-gone cii6tom of the country. In this respect it is the most 
comprehensive document I have yet met with. I will quote 
it entire : 

" When Kamehameha was dangerously sick, and the priests were unable to cure 
him, they said : 'Be of good courage and build a house for the god' (his own pri- 
vate god or idol), that thou mayest recover.' The chiefs corroborated this advice 
of the priests, and a place of worship was prepared for Kukailimoku, and conse- 
crated in the evening. They proposed also to the King, with a view to prolong 
his life, that human victims should be sacrificed to his deity ; upon which the 
greater part of the people absconded through fear of death, and concealed them- 
selves in hiding places till the tabu* in which destruction impended, was past. 
It is doubtful whether Kamehameha approved of the plan of the chiefs and priests 
to sacrifice men, as he was known to say, ' The men are sacred for the King ; ' 
meaning that they were for the service of his successor. This information was 
derived from Liholiho, his son. 

"After this, his sickness increased to such a degree that he had not strength to 
turn himself in his bed. When another season, consecrated for worship at the 
new temple (heiaic) arrived, he said to his son, Liholiho, ' Go thou and make sup- 
plication to thy god ; I am not able to go, and will offer my prayers at home.' 
When his devotions to his feathered god, Kukailimoku, were concluded, a certain 
religiously disposed individual, who had a bird god, suggested to the King that 
through its influence his sickness might be removed. The name of this god was 
Pua ; its body was made of a bird, now eaten by the Hawaiians, and called in 
their language alae. Kamehameha was willing that a trial should be made, and 
two houses were constructed to facilitate the experiment ; but while dwelling in 
them he became so very weak as not to receive food. After lying there three 
days, his wives, children and chiefs, perceiving that he was very low, returned 
him to his own house. In the evening he was carried to the eating house, f 
where he took a little food in his mouth which he did not swallow ; also a cup of 
water. The chiefs requested him to give them his counsel ; but he made no reply, 
and was carried back to the dwelling house ; but when near midnight — ten o'clock, 
perhaps — he was carried again to the place to eat ; but, as before, he merely tasted 
of what was presented to him. Then Kaikioewa addressed him thus: 'Here we 
all are, your younger brethren, your son Liholiho and your foreigner ; impart to us 
your dying charge, that Liholiho and Kaahumanu may hear.' Then Kamehame- 
ha inquired, ' What do you say ? ' Kaikioewa repeated, ' Your counsels for us.' 

*Tabu (pronounced tah-boo,) means prohibition (we have borrowed it,) or sacred. 
The tabu was sometimes permanent, sometimes temporary ; and the person or 
thing placed under tabu was for the time being sacred to the purpose for which it 
was set apart. In the above case the victims selected under the tabu would be 
sacred to the sacrifice. 

fit was deemed pollution to eat in the same hut a person dup* in — the fact 
that the patient was dying could not modify the rigid etiquette. 



HUMAN SACRIFICES AT HIS DEATH. 495 

He then said, ' Move on in my good way and — .' He could proceed no further. 
The foreigner, Mr. Young, embraced and kissed him. Hoapili also embraced him, 
whispering something in his ear, after which he was taken back to the house. 
About twelve he was carried once more to the house for eating, into which his 
head entered, while his body was in the dwelling house immediately adjoining. It 
should be remarked that this frequent carrying of a sick chief from one house to 
another resulted from the tabu system, then in force. There were at that time 
six houses (huts) connected with an establishment — one was for worship, one for 
the men to eat in, an eating house for the women, a house to sleep in, a house in 
which to manufacture kapa (native cloth) and one where, at certain intervals, the 
women might dwell in seclusion. 

" The sick was once more taken to his house, when he expired ; this was at two 
o'clock, a circumstance from which Leleiohoku derived his name. As he breathed 
his last, Kalaimoku came to the eating house to order those in it to go out. There 
were two aged persons thus directed to depart; one went, the other remained on 
account of love to the King, by whom he had formerly been kindly sustained. 
The children also were sent away. Then Kalaimoku came to the house, and th$ 
chiefs had a consultation. One of them spoke thus : ' This is my thought — we 
will eat him raw.'* Kaahumanu (one of the dead King's widows) replied, ' Per- 
haps his body is not at our disposal ; that is more properly with his successor. 
Our part in him — his breath — has departed ; his remains will be disposed of by 
Liholiho.' 

" After this conversation the body was taken into the consecrated house for the 
performance of the proper rites by the priest and the new King. The name of 
this ceremony is uko; and when the sacred hog was baked the priest offered it to, 
the dead body, and it became a god, the King at the same time repeating the cus. 
tomary prayers. 

" Then the priest, addressing himself to the King and chiefs, said : ' I will now 
make known to you the rules to be observed respecting persons to be sacrificed on 
the burial of this body. If you obtain one man before the corpse is removed, one 
will be sufficient ; but after it leaves this house four will be required. If delayed 
until we carry the corpse to the grave there must be ten ; but after it is deposited 
in the grave there must be fifteen. To-morrow morning there will be &tabu y and, 
if the sacrifice be delayed until that time, forty men must die.' 

" Then the high priest, Hewahewa, inquired of the chiefs, ' Where shall be the 
residence of King Liholiho ? ' They replied, ' Where, indeed ? You, of all men, 
ought to know.' Then the priest observed, ' There are two suitable places; one 
is Kau, the other is Kohala.' The chiefs preferred the latter, as it was more 
thickly inhabited. The priest added, ' These are proper places for the King's res- 
idence; but he must not remain in Kona, for it is polluted.' This was agreed to. 
It was now break of day. As he was being carried to the place of burial the peo- 

*This sounds suspicious, in view of the fact that all Sandwich Island historians, 
white and black, protest that cannibalism never existed in the islands. However, 
since they only proposed to " eat him raw " we " won't count that". But it 
would certainly have been cannibalism if they had cooked him. — [M. T.] 



496 DISPOSAL OF HIS BODY. 

pie perceived that their King was dead, and they wailed. When the corpse was 
removed from the house to the tomb, a distance of one chain, the procession was 
met by a certain man who was ardently attached to the deceased. He leaped upon 
the chiefs who were carrying the King's body ; he desired to die with him on ac- 
count of his love. The chiefs drove him away. He persisted in making nume- 
rous attempts, which were unavailing. Kalaimoka also had it in his heart to die 
with him, but was prevented by Hookio. 

" The morning following Kamehameha's death, Liholiho and his train departed 
for Kohala, according to the suggestions of the priest, to avoid the defilement 
occasioned by the dead. At this time if a chief died the land was polluted, and 
the heirs sought a residence in another part of the country until the corpse was 
dissected and the bones tied in a bundle, which being done, the season of defile- 
ment terminated. If the deceased were' not a chief, the house only was defiled 
which became pure again on the burial of the body. Such were the laws on this 
subject. 

" On the morning on which Liholiho sailed in his canoe for Kohala, the chiefs 
and people mourned after their manner on occasion of a chiefs death, conduct- 
ing themselves like madmen and like beasts. Their conduct was such as to for- 
bid description; The priests, also, put into action the sorcery apparatus, that the 
person who had prayed the King to death might die ; for it was not believed that 
Kamehameha's departure was the effect either of sickness or old age. When the 
sorcerers set up by their fire-places stick with a strip of kapa flying at the top, 
the chief Keeaumoku, Kaahumaun's brother, came in a state of intoxication and 
broke the flag-staff of the sorcerers, from which it was inferred that Kaahumanu 
and her friends had been instrumental in the King's death. On this account they 
were subjected to abuse." 

You have the contrast, now, and a strange one it is. This 
great Queen, Kaahumanu, who was "subjected to abuse" dur- 
ing the frightful orgies that followed the King's death, in 
accordance with ancient custom, afterward became a devout 
Christian and a steadfast and powerful friend of the missionaries. 

Dogs were, and still are, reared and fattened for food, by the 
natives — hence the reference to their value in one of the above 
paragraphs. 

Forty years ago it was the custom in the Islands to suspend 
all law for a certain number of days after the death of a royal 
personage ; and then a saturnalia ensued which one may picture 
to himself after a fashion, but not in the full horror of the real- 
ity. The people shaved their heads, knocked out a tooth or 
two, plucked out an eye sometimes, cut, bruised, mutilated or 



AFTER BURIAL ORGIES. 



497 



burned their flesh, got drunk, burned each other's huts, maimed 
or murdered one another according to the caprice of the mo- 
ment, and both sexes gave themselves up to brutal and unbri- 
dled licentiousness. And after it all, came a torpor from which 




FORMEU FUNEK.AX OliGIES. 



the nation slowly emerged bewildered and dazed, as if from a 
hideous half-remembered nightmare. They were not the salt 
of the earth, those " gentle children of the sun." 

The natives still keep up an old custom of theirs which can- 
not be comforting to an invalid. When they think a sick 
friend is going to die, a couple of dozen neighbors surround 
his hut and keep up a deafening wailing night and day till he 
either dies or gets well. No doubt this arrangement has helped 
many a subject to a shroud before his appointed time. 

They surround a hut and wail in the same heart-broken 
way when its occupant returns from a journey. This is their 
dismal idea of a welcome. A very little of it would go a great 
way with most of us. 
32f 



CHAPTER LXIX. 

BOUND for Hawaii (a hundred and fifty miles distant,) to 
visit the great volcano and behold the other notable things 
which distinguish that island above the remainder of the group, 
we sailed from Honolulu on a certain Saturday afternoon, in 
the good schooner Boomerang. 

The Boomerang was about as long as two street cars, and 
about as wide as one. She was so small (though she was larger 
than the majority of the inter-island coasters) that when I stood 
on her deck I felt but little smaller than the Colossus of Rhodes 
must have felt when he had a man-of-war under him. I could 
reach the water when she lay over under a strong breeze. 
When the Captain and my comrade (a Mr. Billings), myself 
and four other persons were all assembled on the little after 
portion of the deck which is sacred to the cabin passengers, it 
was full — there was not room for any more quality folks. An- 
other section of the deck, twice as large as ours, was full of 
natives of both sexes, with their customary dogs, mats, blankets, 
pipes, calabashes of poi, fleas, and other luxuries and baggage 
of minor importance. As soon as we set sail the natives all 
lay down on the deck as thick as negroes in a slave-pen, and 
smoked, conversed, and spit on each other, and were truly 
sociable. 

The little low-ceiled cabin below was rather larger than a 
hearse, and as dark as a vault. It had two coffins on each side 
— I mean two bunks. A small table, capable of accommodating 




"ONCE MORE UPON THE WATERS. 499 

three persons at dinner, stood against the forward bulkhead, 
and over it hung the dingiest whale oil lantern that ever peo- 
pled the obscurity of a dungeon with ghostly shapes. The 
floor room unoccupied was not extensive. One might swing 
a cat in it, perhaps, but not a long cat. The hold forward of 
the bulkhead had but little freight in it, and from morning till 
night a portly old rooster, with a 
voice like Baalam's ass, and the 
same disposition to use it, strutted 
up and down in that part of the 
vessel and crowed. He usually 
took dinner at six o'clock, and then, 
after an hour devoted to medita- 
tion, he mounted a barrel and crow- 
ed a good part of the night. He 
got hoarser and hoarser all the time, 
but he scorned to allow any per- 
sonal consideration to interfere with A P * SSENGBR - 
his duty, and kept up his labors in defiance of threatened 
diphtheria. 

Sleeping was out of the question when he was on watch. 
He was a source of genuine aggravation and annoyance. It 
was worse than useless to shout at him or apply offensive epi- 
thets to him — he only took these things for applause, and 
strained himself to make more noise. Occasionally, during the 
day, I threw potatoes at him through an aperture in the bulk- 
head, but he only dodged and went on crowing. 

The first night, as I lay in my coffin, idly watching the dim 
lamp swinging to the rolling of the ship, and snuffing the nau- 
seous odors of bilge water, I felt something gallop over me. I 
turned out promptly. However, I turned in again when I 
found it was only a rat. Presently something galloped over 
me once more. I knew it was not a rat this time, and I thought 
it might be a centipede, because the Captain had killed one 
on deck in the afternoon. I f urned out. The first glance at 
the pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon each 



500 OUR PASSENGERS. 

end of it — cockroaches as large as peach leaves — fellows with 
long, quivering antennae and fiery, malignant eyes. They 
were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and appeared to 
be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that these 
reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe nails 
down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. 
I lay down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, 
and shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and 
camped in my hair. In a few moments the rooster was crow- 
ing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas were throwing 
double somersaults about my person in the wildest disorder, 
and taking a bite every time they struck. I was beginning to 
feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went 
on deck. 

The above is not overdrawn ; it is a truthful sketch of inter- 
island schooner life. There is no such thing as keeping a ves- 
sel in elegant condition, when she carries molasses and Kanakas. 

It was compensation for my sufferings to come unexpectedly 
upon so beautiful a scene as met my eye — to step suddenly out 
of the sepulchral gloom of the cabin and stand under the strong 
light of the moon — in the centre, as it were, of a glittering sea 
of liquid silver — to see the broad sails straining in the gale, 
the ship keeled over on her side, the angry foam hissing past 
her lee bulwarks, and sparkling sheets of spray dashing high 
over her bows and raining upon her decks ; to brace myself and 
hang fast to the first object that presented itself, with hat 
jammed down and coat tails whipping in the breeze, and feel 
that exhilaration that thrills in one's hair and quivers down 
his back bone when he knows that every inch of canvas is 
drawing and the vessel cleaving through the waves at her ut- 
most speed. There was no darkness, no dimness, no obscurity 
there. All was brightness, every object was vividly defined. 
Every prostrate Kanaka ; every coil of rope ; every calabash of 
poi ; every puppy ; every seam in the flooring ; every bolthead ; 
every object, however minute, showed sharp and distinct in its 
every outline ; and the shadow of the broad mainsail lay black 



IN THE MOONLIGHT. 



501 



as a pall upon the deck, leaving Billings's white upturned face 
glorified and his body in a total eclipse. 

Monday morning we were close to the island of Hawaii. 
Two of its high mountains were in view — Mauna Loa and 
Hualaiai. The latter is an imposing peak, but being only ten 




MOONLIGHT ON THE WATBR. 



thousand feet high is seldom mentioned or heard of. Mauna 
Loa is said to be sixteen thousand feet high. The rays of 
glittering snow and ice, that clasped its summit like a claw, 
looked refreshing when viewed from the blistering climate we 
were in. One could stand on that mountain (wrapped up in 
blankets and furs to keep warm), and while he nibbled a snow- 
ball or an icicle to quench his thirst he could look down the 
long sweep of its sides and see spots where plants are growing 
that grow only where the bitter cold of Winter prevails ; lower 
down he could see sections devoted to productions that thrive 
in the temperate zone alone ; and at the bottom of the moun- 



502 ORANGES AND PEACHES. 

tain lie coma see the home of the tufted cocoa-palms and other 
species of vegetation that grow only in the sultry atmosphere 
of eternal Summer. He could see all the climes of the world 
at a single glance of the eye, and that glance would only pass 
over a distance of four or five miles as the bird flies ! 

By and by we took boat and went ashore at Kailua, design- 
ing to ride horseback through the pleasant orange and coffee 
region of Kona, and rejoin the vessel at a point some leagues 
distant. This journey is well worth taking. The trail passes 
along on high ground — say a thousand feet above sea level — 
and usually about a mile distant from the ocean, which is always 
in sight, save that occasionally you find yourself buried in the 
forest in the midst of a rank tropical vegetation and a dense 
growth of trees, whose great bows overarch the road and shut 
out sun and sea and everything, and leave you in a dim, shady 
tunnel, haunted with invisible singing birds and fragrant with 
the odor of flowers. It was pleasant to ride occasionally in 
the warm sun, and feast the eye upon the ever-changing pano- 
rama of the forest (beyond and below us), with its many tints, 
its softened lights and shadows, its billowy undulations sweep- 
ing gently down from the mountain to the sea. It was pleasant 
also, at intervals, to leave the sultry sun and pass into the cool, 
green depths of this forest and indulge in sentimental reflections 
under the inspiration of its brooding twilight and its whispering 
foliage. 

We rode through one orange grove that had ten thousand 
trees in it ! They were all laden with fruit. 

At one farmhouse we got some large peaches of excellent 
flavor. This fruit, as a general thing, does not do well in the 
Sandwich Islands. It takes a sort of ahnond shape, and is 
small and bitter. It needs frost, they say, and perhaps it does ; 
if this be so, it will have a good opportunity to go on needing 
it, as it will not be likely to get it. The trees from which the 
fine fruit I have spoken of, came, had been planted and replanted 
sixteen times, and to this treatment the proprietor of the orchard 
attributed his success. 



SUGAR PLANTATIONS. 



503 



We passed several sugar plantations — new ones and not very 
extensive. The crops were, in most cases, third rattoons. [Note. 
— The first crop is called " plant cane ;" subsequent crops which 
spring from the original roots, without replanting, are called 
" rattoons."] Almost everywhere on the island of Hawaii 
sugar-cane matures in twelve months, both rattoons and plant, 
and although it ought to be taken off as soon as it tassels, no 
doubt, it is not absolutely necessary to do it until about four 
months afterward. In Kona, the average yield of an acre of 
ground is two tons of sugar, they say. This is only a moderate 
yield for these islands, but would be astounding for Louisiana 
and most other sugar growing countries. The plantations in 
Kona being on pretty high ground — up among the light and 
frequent rains — no irrigation whatever is required. 




CHAPTER LXX. 

WE stopped some time at one of the plantations, to rest 
ourselves and refresh the horses. We had a chatty 
conversation with several gentlemen present ; but there was 
one person, a middle aged man, with an absent look in his face, 
who simply glanced up, gave us good-day and lapsed again into 
the meditations which our coming had interrupted. The 
planters whispered us not to mind him — crazy. They said he 
was in the Islands for his health ; was a preacher ; his home, 
Michigan. They said that if he woke up presently and fell to 
talking about a correspondence which he had some time held 
with Mr. Greeley about a trine of some kind, we must humor 
him and listen with interest ; and we must humor his fancy 
that this correspondence was the talk of the world. 

It was easy to see that he was a gentle creature and that his 
madness had nothing vicious in it. He looked pale, and a little 
worn, as if with perplexing thought and anxiety of mind. He 
sat a long time, looking at the floor, and at intervals muttering 
to himself and nodding his head acquiescingly or shaking it 
in mild protest. He was lost in his thought, or in his memo- 
ries. We continued our talk with the planters, branching 
from subject to subject. But at last the word " circumstance," 
casually dropped, in the course of conversation, attracted his 
attention and brought an eager look into his countenance. He 
faced about in his chair and said : 

"Circumstance? What circumstance? Ah, I know — I 



ANOTER DROLL CHARACTER. 505 

know too well. So you have heard of it too." [With a sigh.] 
"Well, no matter — all the world has heard of it. All the 
world. The whole world. It is a large world, too, for a thing 
to travel so far in — now isn't it ? Yes, yes — the Greeley cor- 
respondence with Erickson has created the saddest and bitterest 
controversy on both sides of the ocean — and still they keep it 
up ! It makes us famous, but at what a sorrowful sacrifice ! 
I was so sorry when I heard that it had caused that bloody and 
distressful war over there in Italy. It was little comfort to 
me, after so much bloodshed, to know that the victors sided 
with me, and the vanquished with Greeley. — It is little comfort 
to know that Horace Greeley is responsible for the battle of 
Sadowa, and not me. Queen Victoria wrote me that she felt 
just as I did about it — she said that as much as she was op- 




THE DEMENTED. 



posed to Greeley and the spirit he showed in the correspondence 
with me, she would not have had Sadowa happen for hundreds 
of dollars. I can show you her letter, if you would like to see 
it. But gentlemen, much as you may think you know about 
that unhappy correspondence, you cannot know the straight of 
it till you hear it from my lips. It has always been garbled in 



506 MRS. BEAZELEY AND HER SON. 

the journals, and even in history. Yes, even in history — think 
of it ! Let me — -please let me, give you the matter, exactly as 
it occurred. I truly will not abuse your confidence." 

Then he leaned forward, all interest, all earnestness, and told 
his story — and told it appealingly, too, and yet in the simplest 
and most unpretentious way ; indeed, in such a way as to sug- 
gest to one, all the time, that this was a faithful, honorable 
witness, giving evidence in the sacred interest of justice, and 
under oath. He said : 

" Mrs. Beazeley— Mrs. Jackson Beazeley, widow, of the village 
of Campbellton, Kansas, — wrote me about a matter which was 
near her heart — a matter which many might think trivial, but 
to her it was a thing of deep concern. I was living in Michi- 
gan, then — serving in the ministry. She was, and is, an esti- 
mable woman — a woman to whom poverty and hardship have 
proven incentives to industry, in place of discouragements. 
Her only treasure was her son William, a youth just verging 
upon manhood ; religious, amiable, and sincerely attached to 
agriculture. He was the widow's comfort and her pride. And 
so, moved by her love for him, she wrote me about a matter, 
as I have said before, which lay near her heart — because it lay 
near her boy's. She desired me to confer with Mr. Greeley 
about turnips. Turnips were the dream of her child's young 
ambition. While other youths were frittering away in frivo- 
lous amusements the precious years of budding vigor which 
God had given them for useful preparation, this boy was pa- 
tiently enriching his mind with information concerning turnips. 
The sentiment which he felt toward the turnip was akin to 
adoration. He could not think of the turnip without emotion; 
he could not speak of it calmly ; he could not contemplate it 
without exaltation. He could not eat it without shedding tears. 
All the poetry in his sensitive nature was in sympathy with 
the gracious vegetable. With the earliest pipe of dawn he 
sought his patch, and when the curtaining night drove him 
from it he shut himself up with his books and garnered statis- 
tics till sleep overcame him. On rainy days he sat and talked 



MEDITATIONS ON TURNIPS. 



507 



hours together with his mother about turnips. When company 
came, he made it his loving duty to put aside everything else 
and converse with them all the day long of his great joy in 




DISCUSSING TURNIPS. 

the turnip. And yet, was this joy rounded and complete ? 
Was there no secret alloy of unhappiness in it ? Alas, there 
was. There was a canker gnawing at his heart ; the noblest 
inspiration of his soul eluded his endeavor — viz : he could not 
make of the turnip a climbing vine. Months went by ; the 
bloom forsook his cheek, the fire faded out of his eye ; sighings 
and abstraction usurped the place of smiles and cheerful con- 
verse. But a watchful eye noted these things and in time a 
motherly sympathy unsealed the secret. Hence the letter to 
me. She pleaded for attention — she said her boy was dying 
by inches. 

" I was a stranger to Mr. Greeley, but what of that ? The 
matter was urgent. I wrote and begged him to solve the dif- 
ficult problem if possible and save the student's life. My in- 
terest grew, until it partook of the anxiety of the mother. I 
waited in much suspense.— At last the answer came. 



50S A LETTER FROM A HIGH AUTHORITY. 

" I found that I could not read it readily, the handwriting 
being unfamiliar and my emotions somewhat wrought up. It 
seemed to refer in part to the boy's case, but chiefly to other 
and irrelevant matters — such as paving-stones, electricity, oys- 
ters, and something which I took to be ' absolution ' or ' agra- 
rianism,' I could not be certain which ; still, these appeared to 
be simply casual mentions, nothing more ; friendly in spirit, 
without doubt, but lacking the connection or coherence neces- 
sary to make them useful. — I judged that my understanding 
was affected by my feelings, and so laid the letter away till 
morning. 

" In the morning I read it again, but with difficulty and 
uncertainty still, for I had lost some little rest and my mental 
vision seemed clouded. The note was more connected, now, 
but did not meet the emergency it was expected to meet. It 
was too discursive. It appeared to read as follows, though I 
was not certain of some of the words : 

1 Polygamy dissembles majesty ; extracts redeem polarity ; causes hitherto exist. 
Ovations pursue wisdom, or warts inherit and condemn. Boston, botany, cakes, 
folony undertakes, but who shall allay ? We fear not. Yrxwly, 

Hbvace Eveeloj.' 

" But there did not seem to be a word about turnips. There 
seemed to be no suggestion as to how they might be made to 
grow like vines. There was not even a reference to the Beaze- 
leys. I slept upon the matter ; I ate no supper, neither any 
breakfast next morning. So I resumed my work with a brain 
refreshed, and was very hopeful. Now the letter took a differ- 
ent aspect — all save the signature, which latter I judged to be 
only a harmless affectation of Hebrew. The epistle was neces- 
sarily from Mr. Greeley, for it bore the printed heading of 
The Tribune, and I had written to no one else there. The 
letter, I say, had taken a different aspect, but still its language 
was eccentric and avoided the issue. It now appeared to say : 

' Bolivia extemporizes mackerel ; borax esteems polygamy ; sausages wither in 
the east. Creation perdu, is done ; for woes inherent one can damn. Buttons, 
buttons, corks, geology underrates but we shall allay. My beer's out. Yrxwly, 

Hevace Eveeloj.' 



HORACE GREELEY— HIS MARK. 509 

tsTew 



2*"L 




^fe^&^S^ 







" I was evidently overworked. My comprehension was im- 
paired. Therefore I gave two days to recreation, and then 
returned to my task greatly refreshed. The letter now took 
this form : 

* Poultices do sometimes choke swine ; tulips reduce posterity ; causes leather 
to resist. Our notions empower wisdom, her let's afford while we can. Butter 
but any cakes, fill any undertaker, we'll wean him from his filly. We feel hot. 

Yrxwly, Hbvacb Evebloj.' 



510 AN INDIGNANT REJOINER. 

" I was still not satisfied. These generalities did not meet 
the question. They were crisp, and vigorous, and delivered 
with a confidence that almost compelled conviction ; but at such 
a time as this, with a human life at stake, they seemed inap- 
propriate, worldly, and in bad taste. At any other time I 
would have been not only glad, but proud, to receive from a 
man like Mr. Greeley a letter of this kind, and would have 
studied it earnestly and tried to improve myself all I could ; 
but now, with that poor boy in his far home languishing for 
relief, I had no heart for learning. 

" Three days passed by, and I read the note again. Again 
its tenor had changed. It now appeared to say : 

1 Potations do sometimes wake wines ; tnrnips restrain passion ; causes necessary 
to state. Infest the poor widow ; her lord's effects will be void. But dirt, bath- 
ing, etc., etc., followed unfairly, will worm him from his folly — so swear not. 

Trxwly, Hevacb Evbeloj.' 

" This was more like it. But I was unable to proceed. I 
was too much worn. The word ' turnips ' brought temporary 
joy and encouragement, but my strength was so much impaired, 
and the delay might be so perilous for the boy, that I relin- 
quished the idea of pursuing the translation further, and re- 
solved to do what I ought to have done at first. I sat down 
and wrote Mr. Greeley as follows : 

'Dear Sir : I fear I do not entirely comprehend your kind note. It cannot 
be possible, Sir, that ' turnips restrain passion ' — at least the study or contempla- 
tion of turnips cannot — for it is this very employment that has scorched our poor 
friend's mind and sapped his bodily strength. — But if they do restrain it, will you 
bear with us a little further and explain how they should be prepared ? I observe 
that you say ' causes necessary to state,' but you have omitted to state them. 

"Under a misapprehension, you seem to attribute to me interested motives in 
this matter — to call it by no harsher term. But I assure you, dear sir, that if I 
seem to be ' infesting the widow,' it is all seeming, and void of reality. It is from 
no seeking of mine that I am in this position. She asked me, herself, to write 
you. I never have infested her — indeed I scarcely know her. I do not infest 
anybody. I try to go along, in my humble way, doing as near right as I can, never 
harming anybody, and never throwing out insinuations. As for ' her lord and his 
effects,' they are of no interest to me. I trust I have effects enough of my own 
— shall endeavor to get along with them, at any rate, and not go mousing around 
to get hold of somebody's that are ' void" But do you not see ?— this woman is 
& widow — she has no 'lord.' He is dead— or pretended to be, when they buried 



TRANSLATED AT LAST. 511 

him. Therefore, no amount of * dirt, bathing,' etc., etc., howsoever * unfairly fol- 
lowed' will be likely to ' worm him from his folly ' — if being dead and a ghost i» 
'folly.' Tour closing remark is as unkind as it was uncalled for; and if report 
says true you might have applied it to yourself, sir, with more point and less impro- 
priety. Very Truly Yours, Simon Ekickson. 

"In the course of a few days, Mr. Greeley did what would 
have saved a world of trouble, and much mental and bodily 
suffering and misunderstanding, if he had done it sooner. To- 
wit, he sent an intelligible rescript or translation of his original 
note, made in a plain hand by his clerk. Then the mystery 
cleared, and I saw that his heart had been right, all the time. 
I will recite the note in its clarified form : 

[Translation.] * 

1 Potatoes do sometimes make vines ; turnips remain passive : cause unnecessary 
to state. Inform the poor widow her lad's efforts will be vain. But diet, bath- 
ing, etc. etc., followed uniformly, wiU wean him from his folly— so fear not. 

Tours, Hob ace Greeley.' 

" But alas, it was too late, gentlemen — too late. The crim- 
inal delay had done its work — young Beazely was no more. 
His spirit had taken its flight to a land where all anxieties 
shall be charmed away, all desires gratified, all ambitions real- 
ized. Poor lad, they laid him to his rest with a turnip in each 
hand." 

So ended Erickson, and lapsed again into nodding, mumbling, 
and abstraction. The company broke up, and left him so. . . . 
But they did not say what drove him crazy. In the momen- 
tary confusion, I forgot to ask. 



CHAPTER LXXI. 

AT four o'clock in the afternoon we were winding down a 
mountain of dreary and desolate lava to the sea, and clos- 
ing our pleasant land journey. This lava is the accumulation 
of ages ; one torrent of fire after another has rolled down here 
in old times, and built up the island structure higher and 
higher. Underneath, it is honey-combed with caves ; it would 
be of no use to dig wells in such a place ; they would not hold 
water — you would not find any for them to hold, for that mat- 
ter. Consequently, the planters depend upon cisterns. 

The last lava flow occurred here so long ago that there are 
none now living who witnessed it. In one place it enclosed and 
burned down a grove of cocoa-nut trees, and the holes in the 
lava where the trunks stood are still visible ; their sides retain 
the impression of the bark ; the trees fell upon the burning 
river, and becoming partly submerged, left in it the perfect 
counterpart of every knot and branch and leaf, and even nut, 
for curiosity seekers of a long distant day to gaze upon and 
wonder at. 

There were doubtless plenty of Kanaka sentinels on guard 
hereabouts at that time, but they did not leave casts of 
their figures in the lava as the Roman sentinels at Herculaneum 
and Pompeii did. It is a pity it is so, because such things are 
so interesting ; but so it is. They probably went away. They 
went away early, perhaps. However, they had their merits ; 
the Romans exhibited the higher pluck, but the Kanakas 
showed the sounder judgment. 



KEALAKEKUA BAY. 513 

Shortly we came in sight of that spot whose history is so 
familiar to every school-boy in the wide world — Kealakekua 
Bay — the place where Captain Cook, the great circumnaviga- 
tor, was killed by the natives, nearly a hundred years ago. 
The setting sun was naming upon it, a Summer shower was 
falling, and it was spanned by two magnificent rainbows. Two 
men who were in advance of us rode through one of these and 
for a moment their garments shone with a more than regal 
splendor. Why did not Captain Cook have taste enough to 
call his great discovery the Rainbow Islands? These charm- 
ing spectacles are present to you at every turn ; they are com- 
mon in all the islands ; they are visible every day, and fre- 
quently at night also — not the silvery bow we see once in an 
age in the States, by moonlight, but barred with all bright and 
beautiful colors, like the children of the sun and rain. I saw 
one of them a few nights ago. What the sailors call " rain, 
dogs " — little patches of rainbow — are often seen drifting about 
the heavens in these latitudes, like stained cathedral windows. 

Kealakekua Bay is a little curve like the last kink of a snail- 
shell, winding deep into the land, seemingly not more than a 
mile wide from shore to shore. It is bounded on one side — 
where the murder was done — by a little flat plain, on which 
stands a cocoanut grove and some ruined houses; a steep wall 
of lava, a thousand feet high at the upper end and three or 
four hundred at the lower, comes down from the mountain and 
bounds the inner extremity of it. From this Avail the place 
takes its name, Kealakekua, which in the native tongue signi- 
fies " The Pathway of the Gods." They say, (and still believe, 
in spite of their liberal education in Christianity), that the 
great god Zono, who used to live upon the hillside, always 
traveled that causeway when urgent business connected with 
heavenly affairs called him down to the seashore in a hurry. 

As the red sun looked across the placid ocean thiough 

the tall, clean stems of the cocoar.ut trees, like a blooming 

whiskey bloat through the bars of a city prison, J went and stood. 

in the edge of the water on the fl&£ rock pressed by Captain 

33f 



514 CAPT. COOK'S ASSASSINATION. 

Cook's feet when the blow was dealt which took away his life, 
and tried to picture in my mind the doomed man struggling in 
the midst of the multitude of exasperated savages — the men 



KEALAKEKUA BAT AND COOK'S MONUMENT. 

in the ship crowding to the vessel's side and gazing in anxious 
dismay toward the shore — the — but I discovered that I could 
not do it. 

It was growing dark, the rain began to fall, we could see that 
the distant Boomerang was helplessly becalmed at sea, and so I 
adjourned to the cheerless little box of a warehouse and sat 
down to smoke and think, and wish the ship would make the 
land — for we had not eaten much for ten hours and were vic- 
iously hungry. 

Plain unvarnished history takes the romance out of Captain 
Cook's assassination, and renders a deliberate verdict of justifi- 
able homicide. "Wherever he went among the islands, he was 
cordially received and welcomed bv the inhabitants, and his 



COOK'S MONUMENT. 515 

ships lavishly supplied with all manner of food. He returned 
these kindnesses with insult and ill-treatment. Perceiving that 
the people took him for the long vanished and lamented god 
Lono, he encouraged them in the delusion for the sake of the 
limitless power it gave him ; but during the famous disturbance 
at this spot, and while he and his comrades were surrounded 
by fifteen thousand maddened savages, he received a hurt and 
betrayed his earthly origin with a groan. It was his death- 
warrant. Instantly a shout went up : " He groans ! — he is not 
a god !" So they closed in upon him and dispatched him. 

His flesh was stripped from the bones and burned (except 
nine pounds of it which were sent on board the ships). The 
heart was hung up in a native hut, where it was found and 
eaten by three children, who mistook it for the heart of a dog. 
One of these children grew to be a very old man, and died in 
Honolulu a few years ago. Some of Cook's bones were recov- 
ered and consigned to the deep by the officers of the ships. 

Small blame should attach to the natives for the killing of 
Cook. They treated him well. In return, he abused them. 
He and his men inflicted bodily injury upon many of them at 
different times, and killed at least three of them before they 
offered any proportionate retaliation. 

Near the shore we found " Cook's Monument " — only a cocoa- 
nut stump, four feet high and about a foot in diameter at the 
butt. It had lava boulders piled around its base to hold it up 
and keep it in its place, and it was entirely sheathed over, from 
top to bottom, with rough, discolored sheets of copper, such as 
ships' bottoms are coppered with. Each sheet had a rude 
inscription scratched upon it — with a nail, apparently — and in 
every case the execution was wretched. Most of these merely 
recorded the visits of British naval commanders to the spot, 
but one of them bore this legend : 

" Near this spot fell 

CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, 

The Distinguished Circumnavigator, who Discovered these 

Islands A. D. 1778. 



516 THE SLEEP OF THE INNOCENT. 

After Cook's murder, his second in command, on board the 
ship, opened lire upon the swarms of natives on the beach, and 
one of his cannon balls cut this cocoanut tree short off and left 
this monumental stump standing. It looked sad and lonely 
enough to us, out there in the rainy twilight. But there is no 
other monument to Captain Cook. True, up on the mountain 
side we had passed by a large inclosure like an ample hog-pen, 
built of lava blocks, which marks the spot where Cook's flesh 
was stripped from his bones and burned ; but this is not prop- 
erly a monument, since it was erected by the natives themselves, 
and less to do honor to the circumnavigator than for the sake 
of convenience in roasting him. A thing like a guide-board 
was elevated above this pen on a tall pole, and formerly there 
was an inscription upon it describing the memorable occurrence 
that had there taken place ; but the sun and the wind have long 
ago so defaced it as to render it illegible. 

Toward midnight a fine breeze sprang up and the schooner 
soon worked herself into the bay and cast anchor. The boat 
came ashore for us, and in a little while the clouds and the 
rain were all gone. The moon was beaming tranquilly down 
on land and sea, and we two were stretched upon the deck 
sleeping the refreshing sleep and dreaming the happy dreams 
that are only vouchsafed to the weary and the innocent. 



CHAPTER LXXII. 

IN the breezy morning we went ashore and visited the ruined 
temple of the last god Lono. The high chief cook of this 
temple — the priest who presided over it and roasted the human 
sacrifices — was uncle to Obookia, and at one time that youth 
was an apprentice-priest under him. Obookia was a young 
native of fine mind, who, together with three other native boys, 
was taken to New England by the captain of a whaleship dur- 
ing the reign of Ivamehameha I, and they were the means of 
attracting the attention of the religious world to their country. 
This resulted in the sending of missionaries there. And this 
Obookia was the very same sensitive savage who sat down on 
the church steps and wept because his people did not have the 
Bible. That incident has been very elaborately painted in 
many a charming Sunday School book — aye, and told so plain- 
tively and so tenderly that I have cried over it in Sunday 
School myself, on general principles, although at a time when 
I did not know much and could not understand why the peo- 
ple of the Sandwich Islands needed to worry so much about it 
as long as they did not know there was a Bible at all. 

Obookia was converted and educated, and was to have re- 
turned to his native land with the first missionaries, had he 
lived. The other native youths made the voyage, and two of 
them did good service, but the third, William Kanui, fell from 
grace afterward, for a time, and when the gold excitement 
broke out in California he journeyed thither and went to min- 



518 



A TEMPLE BUILT BY GHOSTS. 



ing, although he was fifty years old. He succeeded pretty 
well, but the failure of Page, Bacon & Co. relieved him of six 
thousand dollars, and then, to all intents and purposes, he was 
a bankrupt in his old age and he resumed service in the pulpit 
again. He died in Honolulu in 1864. 

Quite a broad tract of land near the temple, extending from 
the sea to the mountain top, was sacred to the god Lono in 
olden times — so sacred that if a common native set his sacrile- 
gious foot upon it it was judicious for him to make his will, 
because his time had come. He might go around it by water, 
but he could not cross it. It was well sprinkled with pagan 
temples and stocked with awkward, homely idols carved out 
of logs of wood. There was a temple devoted to prayers for 
rain — and with fine sagacity it was placed at a point so well 
up on the mountain side that if you prayed there twenty-four 
times a day for rain you would be likely to get it every time. 




THE GHOSTLY BUILDERS. 



You would seldom get to your Amen before you would have 
to hoist your umbrella. 

And there was a large temple near at hand which was built 
in a single night, in the midst of storm and thunder and rain, 
by the ghastly hands of dead men ! Tradition says that by the 



A BEVY OF FEMALE BATHERS. 



519 



wierd glare of the lightning a noiseless multitude of phantoms 
were seen at their strange labor far up the mountain side at 
dead of night — flitting hither and thither and bearing great 
lava-blocks clasped in their nerveless fingers — appearing and 
disappearing as the pallid lustre fell upon their forms and faded 
away again. Even to this day, it is said, the natives hold this 
dread structure in awe and reverence, and will not pass by it 
in the night. 

At noon I observed a bevy of nude native young ladies bath- 
ing in the sea, and went and sat down on their clothes to keep 
them from being stolen. I begged them to come out, for the 
sea was rising and I was satisfied that they were running some 
risk. But they were not afraid, and presently went on with 
their sport. They were finished swimmers and divers, and en* 




ON GUARD. 



joyed themselves to the last degree. They swam races, splashed 
and ducked and tumbled each other about, and filled the air 
with their laughter. It is said that the first thing an Islander 
learns is how to swim ; learning to walk being a matter of 
smaller consequence, comes afterward. One hears tales of na- 
tive men and women swimming ashore from vessels many 
miles at sea — more miles, indeed, than I dare vouch for or even 
mention. And they tell of a native diver who went down in 
thirty or forty-foot waters and brought up an anvil ! I think 



520 THE IDOL LONO. 

lie swallowed the anvil afterward, if my memory serves me. 
However I will not urge this point. 

I have spoken, several times, of the god Lono — I may as 
well furnish two or three sentences concerning him. 

The idol the natives worshiped for him was a slender, unor- 
namented staff twelve feet long. Tradition says he was a fa- 
vorite god on the Island of Hawaii— a great king who had 
been deified for meritorious services — just our own fashion of 
rewarding heroes, with the difference that we would have made 
him a Postmaster instead of a god, no doubt. In an angry 
moment he slew his wife, a goddess named Kaikilani Aiii. 
Kemorse of conscience drove him mad, and tradition presents 
us the singular spectacle of a god traveling " on the shoulder;" 
for in his gnawing grief he wandered about from place to place 
boxing and wrestling with all whom he met. Of course this 
pastime soon lost its novelty, inasmuch as it must necessarily 
have been the case that when so powerful a deity sent a frail 
human opponent " to grass " he never came back any more. 
Therefore, he instituted games called makahiki, and ordered 
that they should be held in his honor, and then sailed for for- 
eign lands on a three-cornered raft, stating that he woujd return 
some day — and that was the last of Lono. He was never seen 
any more ; his raft got swamped, perhaps. But the people 
always expected his return, and thus they were easily led to 
accept Captain Cook as the restored god. 

Some of the old natives believed Cook was Lono to the day 
of their death ; but many did not, for they could not under- 
stand how he could die if he was a god. 

Only a mile or so from Kealakekua Bay is a spot of historic 
interest — the place where the last battle was fought for idolatry. 
Of course we visited it, and came away as wise as most people 
do who go and gaze upon such mementoes of the past when in 
an unreflective mood. 

While the first missionaries were on their way around the 
Horn, the idolatrous customs which had obtained in the island, 
as far back as tradition reached were suddenly broken up. Old 



INFLUENCE OF WOMEN AND WHISKEY 



521 



Kamehameha L, was dead, and his son, Liholiho, the new King 
was a free liver, a roystering, dissolute fellow, and hated the 
restraints of the ancient tabu. His assistant in the Govern- 
ment, Kaahumanu, the Queen dowager, was proud and high- 
spirited, and hated the tabu because it restricted the privileges 
of her sex and degraded all women very nearly to the level of 
brutes. So the case stood. Liholiho had half a mind to put 
his foot down, Kaahumahu had a whole mind to badger him 
into doing it, and whiskey did the rest. It was probably the 
rest. It was probably the first time whiskey ever prominently 
figured as an aid to civilization. Liholiho came up to Kailua 
as drunk as a piper, and attended a great feast ; the determined 
Queen spurred his drunken courage up to a reckless pitch, and 
then, while all the multitude stared in blank dismay, he moved 
deliberately forward and sat down with the women! They 




THE TABU BROKEN. 



saw him eat from the same vessel with them, and were appalled ! 
Terrible moments drifted slowly by, and still the King ate, 



522 A FIERCE CONFLICT FOR IDOLATRY. 

still he lived, still the lightnings of the insulted gods were 
withheld ! Then conviction came like a revelation — the super- 
stitions of a hundred generations passed from before the people 
like a cloud, and a shout went up, " the tabu is broken ! the 
tabu is broken !" 

Thus did King Liholiho and his dreadful whiskey preach the 
first sermon and prepare the way for the new gospel that was 
speeding southward over the waves of the Atlantic. 

The tabu broken and destruction failing to follow the awful 
sacrilege, the people, with that childlike precipitancy which has 
always characterized them, jumped to the conclusion that their 
gods were a weak and wretched swindle, just as they formerly 
jumped to the conclusion that Captain Cook was no god, merely 
because he groaned, and promptly killed him without stopping 
to inquire whether a god might not groan as well as a man if 
it suited his convenience to do it ; and satisfied that the idols 
were powerless to protect themselves they went to work at once 
and pulled them down — hacked them to pieces — applied the 
torch — annihilated them ! 

The pagan priests were furious. And well they might be ; 
they had held the fattest offices in the land, and now they were 
beggared; they had been great — they had stood above the 
chiefs — and now they were vagabonds. They raised a revolt ; 
they scared a number of people into joining their standard, and 
Bekuokalani, an ambitious offshoot of royalty, was easily per- 
suaded to become their leader. 

In the first skirmish the idolaters triumphed over the royal 
army sent against them, and full of confidence they resolved 
to march upon Kailua. The King sent an envoy to try and 
conciliate them, and came very near being an envoy short by 
the operation ; the savages not only refused to listen to him, 
but wanted to kill him. So the King sent his men forth under 
Major General Kalaimoku and the two hosts met at Kuamoo. 
The battle was long and fierce — men and women fighting side 
by side, as was the custom — and when the day was done the 
rebels were flying in every direction in hopeless panic, and 
idolatry and the tabu were dead in the land ! 



AN OPPORTUNE ARRIVAL. 



523 



The royalists marched gayly home to Kailua glorifying the 
new dispensation. " There is no power in the gods," said they ; 
" they are a vanity and a lie. The army with idols was weak ; 
the army without idols was strong and victorious !" 

The nation was without a religion. 

The missionary ship arrived in safety shortly afterward, timed 
by providential exactness to meet the emergency, and the Gos- 
pel was planted as in a virgin soil. 




CHAPTER LXXIII. 

AT noon, we hired a Kanaka to take us down to the ancient 
ruins at Honaunau in his canoe — price two dollars — rea- 
sonable enough, for a sea voyage of eight miles, counting both 
ways. 

The native canoe is an irresponsible looking contrivance. I 
cannot think of anything to liken it to but a boy's sled runner 
hollowed out, and that does not quite convey the correct idea. 
It is about fifteen feet long, high and pointed at both ends, is a 
foot and a half or two feet deep, and so narrow that if you 
wedged a fat man into it you might not get him out again. It 
sits on top of the water like a duck, but it has an outrig- 
ger and does not upset easily, if you keep still. This outrig- 
ger is formed of two long bent sticks like plow handles, which 
project from one side, and to their outer ends is bound a curved 
beam composed of an extremely light wood, which skims along 
the surface of the water and thus saves you from an upset on 
that side, while the outrigger's weight is not so easily lifted as 
to make an upset on the other side a thing to be greatly feared 
Still, until one gets used to sitting perched upon this knife- 
blade, he is apt to reason within himself that it would be more 
comfortable if there were just an outrigger or so on the other 
side also. 

I had the bow seat, and Billings sat amidships and faced the 
Kanaka, who occupied the stern of the craft and did the pad- 
dling. With the first stroke the trim shell of a thing shot out 



A RIDE IN A CANOE. 525 

from the shore like an arrow. There was not much to see. 
While we were on the shallow water of the reef, it was pastime 
to look down into the limpid depths at the large bunches of 
branching coral — the unique shrubbery of the sea. We lost 
that, though, when we got out into the dead blue water of the 
deep. But we had the picture of the surf, then, dashing 
angrily against the crag-bound shore and sending a foaming 
spray high into the air. There was interest in this beetling 
border, too, for it was honey-combed with quaint caves and arches 




SURF-BATHING — SUCCESS. 

and tunnels, and had a rude semblance of the dilapidated architec- 
ture of ruined keeps and castles rising out of the restless sea. 
When this novelty ceased to be a novelty, we turned our eyes 
shoreward and gazed at the long mountain with its rich green 
forests stretching up into the curtaining clouds, and at the 
specks of houses in the rearward distance and the diminished 
schooner riding sleepily at anchor. And when these grew tire- 
some we dashed boldly into the midst of a school of huge, 



526 



NATIVE SURF BATHING. 



beastly porpoises engaged at their eternal game of arching over 
a wave and disappearing, and then doing it over again and keep- 
ing it up — always circling over, in that way, like so many well- 
snbmerged wheels. But the porpoises wheeled themselves 
away, and then we were thrown upon our own resources. It 
did not take many minutes to discover that the sun was blazing 
like a bonfire, and that the weather was of a melting tempera- 
ture. It had a drowsing effect, too. 

In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, 
of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the 
national pastime of surf-bathing. Each heathen would paddle 
three or four hundred yards out to sea, (taking a short board 
with him), then face the shore and wait for a particularly pro- 
digious billow to come along ; at the right moment he would 
fling his board upon its foamy crest and himself upon the board, 
and here he would come whizzing by like a bombshell ! It did 
not seem that a lightning express train could shoot along at a 
more hair-lifting speed. I tried surf-bathing once, subsequently, 
but made a failure of it. I got the board placed right, and at 
the right moment, too ; but missed the connection myself. — The 
board struck the shore in 



three quarters of a second, 
without any cargo, and I 
struck the bottom about the 
same time, with a couple of 
barrels of water in me. 
None but natives ever mas- 
ter the art of surf-bathing 
thoroughly. 

At the end of an hour, we 
had made the four miles, and 
landed on a level point of 
land, upon which was a wide 
extent of old ruins, with many a tall cocoanut tree growing 
among them. Here was the ancient City of Refuge — a vast 
inclosure, whose stone walls were twenty feet thick at the base, 




SURF-BATHING — FAILURE. 



ESCAPE FROM VENGEANCE. 



527 



and fifteen feet high ; an oblong sqnare, a thousand and forty 
feet one way and a fraction under seven hundred the other. 

Within this inclosure, in early times, has been three rude 
temples ; each two hundred and ten feet long by one hundred 
wide, and thirteen high. 

In those days, if a man killed another anywhere on the island 
the relatives were privileged to take the murderer's life ; and 
then a chase for life and liberty began — the outlawed criminal 
flying through pathless forests and over mountain and plain, 
with his hopes fixed upon the protecting walls of the City of 
Eefuge, and the avenger of blood following hotly after him ! 
Sometimes the race was kept up to the very gates of the tem- 
ple, and the panting pair sped through long files of excited 
natives, who watched the contest with flashing eye and dilated 
nostril, encouraging the hunted refugee with sharp, inspiriting 
ejaculations, and sending up a ringing shout of exultation when 
the saving gates closed upon him and the cheated pursuer sank 




THE CITY OP EEFUGE. 

exhausted at the threshold. But sometimes the flying criminal 
fell under the hand of the avenger at the very door, when one 
more brave stride, one more brief second of time would have 



52S PLEA OF EXECUTION. 

brought his feet upon the sacred ground and barred him against 
all harm. Where did these isolated pagans get "this idea of a 
City of Refuge — this ancient Oriental custom ? 

This old sanctuary was sacred to all — even to rebels in arms 
and invading armies. Once within its walls, and confession 
made to the priest and absolution obtained, the wretch with a 
price upon his head could go forth without fear and without 
danger — he was tabu, and to harm him was death. The routed 
rebels in the lost battle for idolatry fled to this place to claim 
sanctuary, and many were thus saved. 

Close to the corner of the great inclosure is a round structure 
of stone, some six or eight feet high, with a level top about 
ten or twelve in diameter. This was the place of execution. 
A high palisade of cocoanut piles shut out the cruel scenes 
from the vulgar multitude. Here criminals were killed, the 
flesh stripped from the bones and burned, and the bones secre- 
ted in holes in the body of the structure. If the man had been 
guilty of a high crime, the entire corpse was burned. 

The walls of the temple are a study. The same food for 
speculation that is offered the visitor to the Pyramids of Egypt 
he will find here — the mystery of how they were constructed 
by a people unacquainted with science and mechanics. The 
natives have no invention of their own for hoisting heavy 
weights, they had no beasts of burden, and they have never 
even shown any knowledge of the properties of the lever. 
Yet some of the lava blocks quarried out, brought over rough, 
broken ground, and built into this wall, six or seven feet from 
the ground, are of prodigious size and would weigh tons. How 
did they transport and how raise them ? 

Both the inner and outer surfaces of the walls present a 
smooth front and are very creditable specimens of masonry. 
The blocks are of all manner of shapes and sizes, but yet are 
fitted together with the neatest exactness. The gradual nar- 
rowing of the wall from the base upward is accurately preserved. 

No cement was used, but the edifice is firm and compact and 
is capable of resisting storm and decay for centuries. Who 



WONDERFUL ROCKS AND THEIR LEGIONS. 529 



built this temple, and how was it built, and when, are myste- 
ries that may never be unraveled. 

Outside of these ancient walls lies a sort of coffin-shaped 
stone eleven feet four inches long and three feet square at the 
small end (it would weigh a few thousand pounds), which the 
high chief who held sway over this district many centuries ago 
brought thither on his shoulder one day to use as a lounge ! 
This circumstance is established by the most reliable traditions. 
He used to lie down on it, in his indolent way, and keep an 
eye on his subjects at work for him and see that there was no 
" soldiering " done. And no doubt there was not any done to 
speak of, because he was a man of that sort of build that incites 
to attention to business on the part of an employee. He was 
fourteen or fifteen feet high. When he stretched himself at 
full length on his lounge, his legs hung down over the end, and 
when he snored he woke the dead. These facts are all attested 
by irrefragable tradition. 

On the other side of the 
temple is a monstrous seven- 
ton rock, eleven feet long, 
seven feet wide and three feet 
thick. It is raised a foot or 




THE QUEEN'S ROCK. 



foot and a half above the ground, and rests upon half a dozen 
little stony pedestals. The same old fourteen-footer brought 
it down from the mountain, merely for fun (he had his own 
34f 



530 LAVA CURIOSITIES. 

notions about fun), and propped it up as we find it now and 
as others may find it a century hence, for it would take a score 
of horses to budge it from its position. They say that fifty 
or sixty years ago the proud Queen Kaahumanu used to fly to 
this rock for safety, whenever she had been making trouble 
with her fierce husband, and hide under it until his wrath was 
appeased. But these Kanakas will lie, and this statement is 
one of their ablest efforts — for Kaahumanu was six feet high — 
she was bulky — she was built like an ox — and she could no 
more have squeezed herself under that rock than she could 
have passed between the cylinders of a sugar mill. What could 
she gain by it, even if she succeeded ? To be chased and abused 
by a savage husband could not be otherwise than humiliating 
to her high spirit, yet it could never make her feel so flat as an 
hour's repose under that rock would. 

We walked a mile over a raised macadamized road of uni- 
form width ; a road paved with flat stones and exhibiting in its 
every detail a considerable degree of engineering skill. Some 
say that that wise old pagan, Kamehameha I. planned and 
built it, but others say it was built so long before his time that 
the knowledge of who constructed it has passed out of the tra- 
ditions. In either case, however, as the handiwork of an 
untaught and degraded race it is a thing of pleasing interest. 
The stones are worn and smooth, and pushed apart in places, 
so that the road has the exact appearance of those ancient paved 
highways leading out of Rome which one sees in pictures. 

The object of our tramp was to visit a great natural curiosity 
at the base of the foothills — a congealed cascade of lava. Some 
old forgotten volcanic eruption sent its broad river of fire down 
the mountain side here, and it poured down in a great torrent 
from an overhanging bluff some fifty feet high to the ground 
below. The flaming torrent cooled in the winds from the sea, 
and remains there to-day, all seamed, and frothed and rippled 
a petrified Niagara. It is very picturesque, and withal so nat- 
ural that one might almost imagine it still flowed. A smaller 
stream trickled over the cliff and built up an isolated pyramid 



A PETRIFIED NIAGARA. 



531 



about thirty feet high., which has the semblance of a mass of 
large gnarled and knotted vines and roots and stems intricately 
twisted and woven together. 

We passed in behind the cascade and the pyramid, and found 
the bluff pierced by several cavernous tunnels, whose crooked 
courses we followed a long distance. 

Two of these winding tunnels stand as proof of Nature's 
mining abilities. Their floors are level, they are seven feet 
wide, and their roofs are gently arched. Their height is not uni- 
form, however. We passed through one a hundred feet long, 
which leads through a spur of the hill and opens out well up 
in the sheer wall of a precipice whose foot rests in the waves 
of the sea. It is a commodious tunnel, except that there are 
occasional places in it where one must stoop to pass under. 
The roof is lava, of course, and is thickly studded with little 
lava-pointed icicles an inch long, which hardened as they drip- 
pod. They project as closely together as the iron teeth of a 
com-sheller, and if one will stand up straight and walk any 
distance there, he can get his hair combed free of charge. 




CHAPTER LXXIY. 

"TT7TE got back to the schooner in good time, and then sailed 
V Y down to Kau, where we disembarked and took final 
leave of the vessel. Next day we bought horses and bent our 
way over the summer-clad mountain-terraces, toward the great 
volcano of Kilauea (Ke-low-way-ah). We made nearly a two 
days' journey of it, but that was on account of laziness. To- 
ward sunset on the second day, we reached an elevation of some 
four thousand feet above sea level, and as we picked our careful 
way through billowy wastes of lava long generations ago stricken 
dead and cold in the climax of its tossing fury, we began to 
come upon signs of the near presence of the volcano— signs in 
the nature of ragged fissures that discharged jets of sulphurous 
vapor into the air, hot from the molten ocean down in the bow- 
els of the mountain. 

Shortly the crater came into view. I have seen Vesuvius 
since, but it was a mere toy, a child's volcano, a soup-kettle, 
compared to this. Mount Vesuvius is a shapely cone thirty-six 
hundred feet high ; its crater an inverted cone only three hun- 
dred feet deep, and not more than a thousand feet in diameter, 
if as much as that ; its fires meagre, modest, and docile. — But 
here was a vast, perpendicular, walled cellar, nine hundred feet 
deep in some places, thirteen hundred in others, level-floored, 
and ten miles in circumference ! Here was a yawning pit 
upon whose floor the armies of Kussia could camp, and have 
room to spare. 
Perched upon the edge of the crater, at the opposite end 



A VISIT TO THE CRATER. 



533 



from where we stood, was a small look-out house — say three 
miles away. It assisted us, by comparison, to comprehend 
and appreciate the great depth of the basin — it looked like a 
tiny martin-box clinging at the eaves of a cathedral. After 
some little time spent in resting and looking and ciphering, we 
hurried on to the hotel. 

By the path it is half a mile from the Volcano House to the 
lookout-house. After a hearty supper we waited until it was 
thoroughly dark and then started to the crater. The lirst glance 
in that direction revealed a scene of wild beauty. There was 
a heavy fog over the crater and it was splendidly illuminated 
by the glare from the fires below. The illumination was two 
miles wide and a mile high, perhaps ; and if you ever, on a 
dark night and at a distance beheld the light from thirty or 
forty blocks of distant build- 
ings all on fire at once, re- 
flected strongly against over- 
hanging clouds, you can 
form a fair idea of what this 
looked like. 

A colossal column of cloud 
towered to a great height in 
the air immediately above 
the crater, and the outer 
swell of every one of its vast 
folds was dyed with a rich 
crimson luster, which was 
subdued to a pale rose tint 
in the depressions between. 
It glowed like a muffled 
torch and stretched upward 
to a dizzy height toward the 
zenith. I thought it just 
possible that its like had' not been seen since the children of 
Israel wandered on their long march through the desert so 
many centuries ago over a path illuminated by the mysterious 




THE PILLAR OF F1KK. 



534 THE FLOOK OF THE ABYSS. 

" pillar of fire." And I was sure that I now had a vivid con- 
ception of what the majestic "pillar of fire" was like, which 
almost amounted to a revelation. 

Arrived at the little thatched lookout house, we rested our 
elbows on the railing in front and looked abroad over the wide 
crater and down over the sheer precipice at the seething fires 
beneath us. The view was a startling improvement on my 
daylight experience. I turned to see the effect on the balance 
of the company and found the reddest-faced set of men I almost 
ever saw. In the strong light every countenance glowed like 
red-hot iron, every shoulder was suffused with crimson and 
shaded rearward into dingy, shapeless obscurity ! The place 
below looked like the infernal regions and these men like 
half-cooled devils just come up on a furlough. 

I turned my eyes upon the volcano again. The "cellar" 
was tolerably well lighted up. For a mile and a half in front 
of us and half a mile on either side, the floor of the abyss 
was magnificently illuminated ; beyond these limits the mists 
hung down their gauzy curtains and cast a deceptive gloom 
over all that made the twinkling fires in the remote corners of 
the crater seem countless leagues removed — made them seem 
like the camp-fires of a great army far away. Here was 
room for the imagination to work ! You could imagine 
those lights the width of a continent away — and that hid- 
den under the intervening darkness were hills, and winding 
rivers, and weary wastes of plain and desert — and even then 
the tremendous vista stretched on, and on, and on ! — to the fires 
and far beyond ! You could not compass it — it was the idea 
of eternity made tangible — and the longest end of it made vis- 
ible to the naked eye ! 

The greater part of the vast floor of the desert under us was as 
black as ink, and apparently smooth and level ; but over a mile 
square of it was ringed and streaked and striped with a thousand 
branching streams of liquid and gorgeously brilliant fire ! It 
looked like a colossal railroad map of the State of Massachusetts 
done in chain lightning on a midnight sky. Imagine it — im- 



MAGNIFICENT SPECTACLE. 



535 



agine a coal-black sky shivered into a tangled net-work of angry 
fire! 

Here and there were gleaming holes a hundred feet in diam- 
eter, broken in the dark crust, and in them the melted lava — 
the color a dazzling white just tinged with yellow — was boiling 




THE CRATER. 



and surging furiously ; and from these holes branched number- 
less bright torrents in many directions, like the spokes of a 
wheel, and kept a tolerably straight course for a while and then 



536 A LAKE OF FIRE. 

swept round in huge rainbow curves, or made a long succession 
of sharp worm-fence angles, which looked precisely like the 
fiercest jagged lightning. These streams met other streams, 
and they mingled with arid crossed and recrossed each other in 
every conceivable direction, like skate tracks on a popular skat- 
ing ground. Sometimes streams twenty or thirty feet wide 
flowed from the holes to some distance without dividing — and 
through the opera-glasses we could see that they ran down 
small, steep hills and were genuine cataracts of fire, white at 
their source, but soon cooling and turning to the richest red, 
grained with alternate lines of black and gold. Every now 
and then masses of the dark crust broke away and floated slowly 
down these streams like rafts down a river. Occasionally the 
molten lava flowing under the superincumbent crust broke 
through — split a dazzling streak, from five hundred to a thou- 
sand feet long, like a sudden flash of lightning, and then acre 
after acre of the cold lava parted into fragments, turned up 
edgewise like cakes of ice when a great river breaks up, plunged 
downward and were swallowed in the crimson cauldron. Then 
the wide expanse of the " thaw " maintained a ruddy glow for 
a while, but shortly cooled and became black and level again. 
During a " thaAV," every dismembered cake was marked by a 
glittering white border which was superbly shaded inward by 
aurora borealis rays, which were a flaming yellow where they 
joined the white border, and from thence toward their points 
tapered into glowing crimson, then into a rich, pale carmine, 
and finally into a faint blush that held its own a moment and 
then dimmed and turned black. Some of the streams preferred 
to mingle together in a tangle of fantastic circles, and then they 
looked something like the confusion of ropes one sees on a 
ship's deck when she has just taken in sail and dropped anchor 
— provided one can imagine those ropes on fire. 

Through the glasses, the little fountains scattered about looked 
very beautiful. They boiled, and coughed, and spluttered, and 
discharged sprays of stringy red fire — of about the consistency 
of mush, for instance — from ten to fifteen feet into the air, 



HISSING OF THE BUBBLING LAVA. 537 

along with a shower of brilliant white sparks — a quaint and 
unnatural mingling of gouts of blood and snow-flakes ! 

"We had circles and serpents and streaks of lightning all 
twined and wreathed and tied together, without a break 
throughout an area more than a mile square (that amount of 
ground was covered, though it was not strictly " square "), and 
it was with a feeling of placid exultation that we reflected that 
many years had elapsed since any visitor had seen such a splen- 
did display — since any visitor had seen anything more than the 
now snubbed and insignificant "North" and "South" lakes 
in action. We had been reading old files of Hawaiian news- 
papers and the " Record Book " at the Volcano House, and 
were posted. 

I could see the North Lake lying out on the black floor 
away off in the outer edge of our panorama, and knitted to it 
by a web-work of lava streams. In its individual capacity it 
looked very little more respectable than a schoolhouse on fire. 
True, it was about nine hundred feet long and two or three 
hundred wide, but then, under the present circumstances, it 
necessarily appeared rather insignificant, and besides it was so 
distant from us. 

I forgot to say that the noise made by the bubbling lava is 
not great, heard as we heard it from our lofty perch. It makes 
three distinct sounds — a rushing, a hissing, and a coughing or 
puffing sound ; and if you stand on the brink and close your 
eyes it is no trick at all to imagine that you are sweeping down 
a river on a large low-pressure steamer, and that you hear the 
hissing of the steam about her boilers, the puffing from her 
escape-pipes and the churning rush of the water abaft her 
wheels. The smell of sulphur is strong, but not unpleasant to 
a sinner. 

We left the lookout house at ten o'clock in a half cooked 
condition, because of the heat from Pele's furnaces, and wrap- 
ping up in blankets, for the night was cold, we returned to our 
Hotel 



CHAPTER LXXV. 

THE next night was appointed for a visit to the bottom of 
the crater, for we desired to traverse its floor and see the 
" North Lake " (of fire) which lay two miles away, toward the 
further wall. After dark half a dozen of ns set out, with lan- 
terns and native guides, and climbed down a crazy, thousand- 
foot pathway in a crevice fractured in the crater wall, and 
reached the bottom in safety. 

The irruption of the previous evening had spent its force 
and the floor looked black and cold ; but when we ran out upon 
it we found it hot yet, to the feet, and it was likewise riven 
with crevices which revealed the underlying fires gleaming 
vindictively. A neighboring cauldron was threatening to over- 
flow, and this added to the dubiousness of the situation. So 
the native guides refused to continue the venture, and then 
every body deserted except a stranger named Marlette. He 
said he had been in the crater a dozen times in daylight and 
believed he could find his way through it at night. He thought 
that a run of three hundred yards would carry us over the hot- 
test part of the floor and leave us our shoe-soles. His pluck 
gave me back-bone. We took one lantern and instructed the 
guides to hang the other to the roof of the look-out house to 
serve as a beacon for us in case we got lost, and then the party 
started back up the precipice and Marlette and I mads our run. 
We skipped over the hot floor and over the red crevices with 
brisk dispatch and reached the cold lava safe but with pretty 
warm feet. Then we took things leisurely and comfortably, 



A VISIT TO THE NORTH LAKE. 539 

jumping tolerably wide and probably bottomless chasms, and 
threading our way through picturesque lava upheavals with 
considerable confidence. When we got fairly away from the 
cauldrons of boiling fire, we seemed to be in a gloomy desert, 
and a suffocatingly dark one, surrounded by dim walls that 
seemed to tower to the sky. The only cheerful objects were 
the glinting stars high overhead. 

By and by Marlette shouted " Stop !" I never stopped 
quicker in my life. I asked what the matter was. He said 
we were out of the path. He said we must not try to go on 
till we found it again, for we were surrounded with beds of 
rotten lava through which we could easily break and plunge 
down a thousand feet. I thought eight hundred would answer 
for me, and was about to say so when Marlette partly proved 
his statement by accidentally crushing through and disappear- 




BKEAKING THROUGH. 

ing to his arm-pits. He got out and we hunted for the path with 
the lantern. He said there was only one path and that it was 
but vaguely defined. We could not find it. The lava surface 
was all alike in the lantern light. But he was an ingenious 
man. He said it was not the lantern that had informed him 
that we were out of the path, bat his feet. He had noticed a 
crisp grinding of fine lava-needles under his feet, and some 
instinct reminded him that in the path these were all worn 
away. So he put the lantern behind him, and began to search 
with his boots instead of his eyes. It was good sagacity. The 



540 



FOUNTAINS OF FIRE 



first time his foot touched a surface that did not grind under 
it he announced that the trail was found again ; and after that 
we kept up a sharp listening for the rasping sound and it always 
warned us in time. 

It was a long tramp, but an exciting one. We reached the 
North Lake between ten and eleven o'clock, and sat down on 
a huge overhanging lava-shelf, tired but satisfied. The specta- 
cle presented was worth coming double the distance to see. 
Under us, and stretching away before us, was a heaving sea of 
molten fire of seemingly limitless extent. The glare from it 
was so blinding that it was some time before we could bear to 
look upon it steadily. It was like gazing at the sun at noon- 
day, except that the glare was not quite so white. At unequal 
distances all around the shores of the lake were nearly white- 
hot chimneys or hollow drums of lava, four or five feet high, 
and up through them were bursting gorgeous sprays of lava- 
gouts and gem spangles, some white, some red and some golden 




— a ceaseless bombardment, and one that fascinated the eye 
with its unapproachable splendor. The more distant jets, 
sparkling up through an intervening gossamer veil of vapor, 



SURGING BILLOWS OF FLAME. 541 

seemed miles away ; and the further the curving ranks of fiery 
fountains receded, the more fairy-like and beautiful they 
appeared. 

Now and then the surging bosom of the lake under our noses 
would calm down ominously and seem to be gathering strength 
for an enterprise ; and then all of a sudden a red dome of lava 
of the bulk of an ordinary dwelling would heave itself aloft 
like an escaping balloon, then burst asunder, and out of its 
heart would flit a pale-green film of vapor, and float upward 
and vanish in the darkness — a released soul soaring homeward 
from captivity with the damned, no doubt. The crashing 
plunge of the ruined dome into the lake again would send a 
world of seething billows lashing against the shores and shaking 
the foundations of our perch. By and by, a loosened mass of 
the hanging shelf we sat on tumbled into the lake, jarring the 
surroundings like an earthquake and delivering a suggestion 
that may have been intended for a hint, and may not. We did 
not wait to see. 

We got lost again on our way back, and were more than an 
hour hunting for the path. We were where we could see the 
beacon lantern at the look-out house at the time, but thought 
it was a star and paid no attention to it. We reached the hotel 
at two o'clock in the morning pretty well fagged out. 

Kilauea never overflows its vast crater, but bursts a passage 
for its lava through the mountain side when relief is necessary, 
and then the destruction is fearful. About 1840 it rent its 
overburdened stomach and sent a broad river of fire careering 
down to the sea, which swept away forests, huts, plantations 
and every thing else that lay in its path. The stream was Jive 
miles broad, in places, and two hundred feet deep, and the dis- 
tance it traveled was forty miles. It tore up and bore away 
acre-patches of land on its bosom like rafts — rocks, trees and 
all intact. At night the red glare was visible a hundred miles 
at sea ; and at a distance of forty miles fine print could be read 
at midnight. The atmosphere was poisoned with sulphurous 
vapors and choked with falling ashes, pumice stones and cin- 
ders ; countless columns of smoke rose up and blended together 
in a tumbled canopy that hid the heavens and glowed with a 



542 



STREAMS OF BURNING LAVA. 



ruddy flush reflected from the fires below ; here and there jets 
of lava sprung hundreds of feet into the air and burst into rock- 
et-sprays that returned to earth in a crimson rain ; and all the 
while the laboring mountain shook with Nature's great palsy - 




and voiced its distress in moanings and the muffled booming 
of subterranean thunders. 

Fishes were killed for twenty miles along the shore, where 



PRODIGIOUS TIDAL-WAVE. 



543 



the lava entered the sea. The earthquakes caused some loss 
of human life, and a prodigious tidal wave swept inland, carry- 
ing every thing before it and drowning a number of natives. 
The devastation consummated along the route traversed by the 




river of lava was complete and incalculable. Only a Pompeii 
and a Herculaneum were needed at the foot of Kilauea to make 
the story of the irruption immortal. 



OHAPTEE LXXTL 

~TT7"E rode horseback all around the island of Hawaii (the 
▼ ▼ crooked road making the distance two hundred miles), 
and enjoyed the journey very much. We. were more than a 
week making the trip, because our Kanaka horses would not 
go by a house or a hut without stopping — whip and spur could 
not alter their minds about it, and so we finally found that it 
economized time to let them have their way. Upon inquiry 
the mystery was explained : the natives are such thorough- 
going gossips that they never pass a house without stopping to 
swap news, and consequently their horses learn to regard that 
sort of thing as an essential part of the whole duty of man, 
and his salvation not to be compassed without it. However, at a 
former crisis of my life I had once taken an aristocratic young 
lady out driving, behind a horse that had just retired from a 
long and honorable career as the moving impulse of a milk 
wagon, and so this present experience awoke a reminiscent sad- 
ness in me in place of the exasperation more natural to the 
occasion. I remembered how helpless I was that day, and how 
humiliated ; how ashamed I was of having intimated to the girl 
that I had always owned the horse and was accustomed to 
grandeur ; how hard I tried to appear easy, and even vivacious, 
under suffering that was consuming my vitals ; how placidly 
and maliciously the girl smiled, and kept on smiling, while my 
hot blushes baked themselves into a permanent blood-pudding 
in my face ; how the horse ambled from one side of the street 
to the other and waited complacently before every third house 



THE RETIRED MILK HORSE 



545 



two minutes and a quarter while I belabored his back and re- 
viled him in my heart ; how I tried to keep him from turning 
corners, and failed ; how I moved heaven and earth to get him 
out of town, and did not succeed ; how he traversed the entire 
settlement and delivered imaginary milk at a hundred and 
sixty-two different domiciles, and how he finally brought up at 
a dairy depot and refused to budge further, thus rounding and 




TKIP ON THE MILKV WAV. 



completing the revealment of what the plebeian service of his 
life had been ; how, in eloquent silence, I walked the girl home, 
and how, when I took leave of her, her parting remark scorched 
my soul and appeared to blister me all over : she said that my 
horse was a fine, capable animal, and I must have taken great 
comfort in him in my time — but that if I w r ould take along 
some milk-tickets next time, and appear to deliver them at the 
various halting places, it might expedite his movements a little. 
There was a coolness between us after that. 

In one place in the island of Hawaii, we saw a laced and 
35f 



546 ANOTHER HORSE STORY. 

ruffled cataract of limpid water leaping from a sheer precipice 
fifteen hundred feet high ; but that sort of scenery finds its 
stanchest ally in the arithmetic rather than in spectacular effect. 
If one desires to be so stirred by a poem of Nature wrought in 
the happily commingled graces of picturesque rocks, glimpsed 
distances, foliage, color, shifting lights and shadows, and falling 
water, that the tears almost come into his eyes so potent is the 
charm exerted, he need not go away from America to enjoy 
such an experience. The Rainbow Fall, in Watkins Glen 
(NV Y.), on the Erie railway, is an example. It would recede 
into pitiable insignificance if the callous tourist drew an arith- 
metic on it ; but left to compete for the honors simply on scenic 
grace and beauty — the grand, the august and the sublime being 
barred the contest — it could challenge the old world and the 
new to produce its peer. 

In one locality, on our journey, we saw some horses that 
had been born and reared on top of the mountains, above the 
range of running water, and consequently they had never drank 
that fluid in their lives, but had been always accustomed to 
quenching their thirst by eating dew-laden or shower-wetted 
leaves. And now it was destructively funny to see them sniff 
suspiciously at a pail of water, and then put in their noses and 
try to take a bite out of the fluid, as if it were a solid. Find- 
ing it liquid, they would snatch away their heads and fall to 
trembling, snorting and showing other evidences of fright. 
When they became convinced at last that the water was friendly 
and harmless, they thrust in their noses up to their eyes, 
brought out a mouthful of the water, and proceeded to chew it 
complacently. We saw a man coax, kick and spur one of them 
five or ten minutes before he could make it cross a running 
stream. It spread its nostrils, distended its eyes and trembled 
all over, just as horses customarily do in the presence of a ser- 
pent — and for aught I know it thought the crawling stream 
was a serpent. 

In due course of time our journey came to an end at Ka- 
waehae (usually pronounced To-a-At— and before we find fault 
with this elaborate orthographical method of arriving at such 




A VIEW IN THE IAO VALLEY 



A PICNICING EXCURSION. 547 

an unostentatious result, let us lop off the ugh from our word 
" though "). I made this horseback trip on a mule. I paid ten 
dollars for him at Kau (Kah-oo), added four to get him shod, 
rode him two hundred miles, and then sold him for fifteen dol- 
lars. I mark the circumstance with a white stone (in the ab- 
sence of chalk — for I never saw a white stone that a body could 
mark anything with, though out of respect for the ancients I 
have tried it often enough) ; for up to that day and date it was 
the first strictly commercial transaction I had ever entered into, 
and come out winner. We returned to Honolulu, and from 
thence sailed to the island of Maui, and spent several weeks 
there very pleasantly. I still remember, with a sense of indo- 
lent luxury, a picnicing excursion up a romantic gorge there, 
called the Iao Valley. The trail lay along the edge of a brawl- 
ing stream in the bottom of the gorge — a shady route, for it 
was well roofed with the verdant domes of forest trees. Through 
openings in the foliage we glimpsed picturesque scenery that 
revealed ceaseless changes and new charms with every step of 
our progress. Perpendicular walls from one to three thousand 
feet high guarded the way, and were sumptuously plumed with 
varied foliage, in places, and in places swathed in waving ferns. 
Passing shreds of cloud trailed their shadows across these shin- 
ing fronts, mottling them with blots ; billowy masses of white 
vapor hid the turreted summits, and far above the vapor swelled 
a background of gleaming green crags and cones that came and 
went, through the veiling mists, like islands drifting in a fog; 
sometimes the cloudy curtain descended till half the canon wall 
was hidden, then shredded gradually away till only airy glimpses 
of the ferny front appeared through it — then swept aloft and 
left it glorified in the sun again. Now and then, as our posi- 
tion changed, rocky bastions swung out from the wall, a mimic 
ruin of castellated ramparts and crumbling towers clothed with 
mosses and hung with garlands of swaying vines, and as we 
moved on they swung back again and hid themselves once 
more in the foliage. Presently a verdure-clad needle of stone, 
a thousand feet high, stepped out from behind a corner, and 
mounted guard over the mysteries of the valley. It seemed to 



548 DEAD VOLCANO OF HALEAKALA. 

me that if Captain Cook needed a monument, here was one 
ready made — therefore, why not put up his sign here, and sell 
out the venerable cocoanut stump ? 

But the chief pride of Maui is her dead volcano of Halea- 
kala — which means, translated, " the house of the sun." We 
climbed a thousand feet up the side of this isolated colossus 
one afternoon ; then camped, and next day climbed the remain- 
ing nine thousand feet, and anchored on the summit, where we 
built a fire and froze and roasted by turns, all night. With 
the first pallor of dawn we got up and saw things that were 
new to us. Mounted on a commanding pinnacle, we watched 
Nature work her silent wonders. The sea was spread abroad 
on every hand, its tumbled surface seeming only wrinkled and 
dimpled in the distance. A broad valley below appeared like 
an ample checker-board, its velvety green sugar plantations 
alternating with dun squares of barrenness and groves of trees 
diminished to mossy tufts. Beyond the valley were mountains 
picturesquely grouped together ; but bear in mind, we fancied 
that we were looking up at these things — not down. We seemed 
to sit in the bottom of a symmetrical bowl ten thousand feet 
deep, with the valley and the skirting sea lifted away into the 
sky above us ! It was curious ; and not only curious, but ag- 
gravating ; for it was having our trouble all for nothing, to 
climb ten thousand feet toward heaven and then have to look 
up at our scenery. However, we had to be content with it and 
make the best of it ; for, all we could do we could not coax our 
landscape down out of the clouds. Formerly, when I had read 
an article in which Poe treated of this singular fraud perpe- 
trated upon the eye by isolated great altitudes, I had looked 
upon the matter as an invention of his own fancy. 

I have spoken of the outside view — but we had an inside 
one, too. That was the yawning dead crater, into which we 
now and then tumbled rocks, half as large as a barrel, from our 
perch, and saw them go careering down the almost perpendic- 
ular sides, bounding three hundred feet at a jump ; kicking up 
wiust-clouds wherever they struck ; diminishing to our view as 
they sped farther into distance ; growing invisible, finally, and 



COMPARED WITH VESUVIUS. 



549 



only betraying their course by faint little puffs of dust ; and com- 
ing to a halt at last in the bottom of the abyss, two thousand five 




MAGNIFICENT SPORT. 



hundred feet down from 
where they started ! It was 
magnificent sport. We wore 
ourselves out at it. 

The crater of Vesuvius, 
as I have before remarked, 
is a modest pit about a thou- 
sand feet deep and three 
thousand in circumference ; 
that of Kilauea is somewhat 
deeper, and ten miles in 
circumference. But what are either of them compared to the 
vacant stomach of Haleakala? I will not offer any figures of 
my own, but give official ones— those of Commander Wilkes, 
XL S. K, who surveyed it and testifies that it is twenty-seven 
miles in circumference ! If it had a level bottom it would 
make a fine site for a city like London. It must have afforded 
a spectacle worth contemplating in the old days when its fur- 
naces gave full rein to their anger. 

Presently vagrant white clouds came drifting along, high 
over the sea and the valley ; then they came in couples and 
groups ; then in imposing squadrons ; gradually joining their 
forces, they banked themselves solidly together, a thousand 



550 AN INSIDE VIEW. 

feet under us, and totally shut out land and ocean — not a ves- 
tige of anything was left in view but just a little of the rim 
of the crater, circling away from the pinnacle whereon we sat 
(for a ghostly procession of wanderers from the filmy hosts 
without had drifted through a chasm in the crater wall and 
filed round and round, and gathered and sunk and blended to- 
gether till the abyss was stored to the brim with a fleecy fog). 
Thus banked, motion ceased, and silence reigned. Clear to the 
horizon, league on league, the snowy floor stretched without a 
break — not level, but in rounded folds, with shallow creases be- 
tween, and with here and there stately piles of vapory archi- 
tecture lifting themselves aloft out of the common plain — some 
near at hand, some in the middle distances, and others relieving 
the monotony of the remote solitudes. There was little con- 
versation, for the impressive scene overawed speech. I felt 
like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, and left pin- 
nacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world. 

While the hush yet brooded, the messengers of the coming 
resurrection appeared in the East. A growing warmth suffused 
the horizon, and soon the sun emerged and looked out over the 
cloud-waste, flinging bars of ruddy light across it, staining its 
folds and billow-caps with blushes, purpling the shaded troughs 
between, and glorifying the massy vapor-palaces and cathedrals 
with a wasteful splendor of all blendings and combinations of 
rich coloring. 

It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed, and I think 
the memory of it will remain with me always. 



CHAPTER LXXVII. 

I STUMBLED upon one curious character in the Island of 
Mani. He became a sore annoyance to me in the course 
of time. My first glimpse- of him was in a sort of public room 
in the town of Lahaina. He occupied a chair at the opposite 
side of the apartment, and sat eyeing our party with interest 
for some minutes, and listening as critically to what we were 
saying as if he fancied we were talking to him and expecting 
him to reply. I thought it very sociable in a stranger. Pres- 
ently, in the course of conversation, I made a statement bearing 
upon the subject under discussion — and I made it with due 
modesty, for there was nothing extraordinary about it, and it 
was only put forth in illustration of a point at issue. I had 
barely finished when this person spoke out with rapid utterance 
and feverish anxiety : 

" Oh, that was certainly remarkable, after a fashion, but you 
ought to have seen my chimney — you ought to have seen my 
chimney, sir ! Smoke ! I wish I may hang if — Mr. Jones, 
you remember that chimney — you must remember that chim- 
ney ! No, no — I recollect, now, you warn't living on this side 
of the island then. But I am telling you nothing but the truth, 
and I wish I may never draw another breath if that chimney 
didn't smoke so that the smoke actually got caked in it and I 
had to dig it out with a pickaxe ! You may smile, gentlemen, 
but the High Sheriff's got a hunk of it which I dug out before 
his eyes, and so it's perfectly easy for you to go and examine 
for yourselves." 

The interruption broke up the conversation, which had al- 



552 STORY OF THE BIG TREE. 

ready "begun to lag, and we presently hired some natives and 
an out-rigger canoe or two, and went out to overlook a grand 
surf-bathing contest. 

Two weeks after this, while talking in a company, I looked 
up and detected this same man boring through and through 
me with his intense eye, and noted again his twitching muscles 
and his feverish anxiety to speak. The moment I paused, he 
said : 

" Beg your pardon, sir, beg your pardon, but it can only be 
considered remarkable when brought into strong outline by 
isolation. Sir, contrasted with a circumstance which occurred 
in my own experience, it instantly becomes commonplace. No, 
not that — for I will not speak so discourteously of any experi- 
ence in the career of a stranger and a gentleman — but I am 
obliged to say that you could not, and you would not ever again 
refer to this tree as a large one, if you could behold, as I have, 
the great Yakmatack tree, in the island of Ounaska, sea of 
Kamtcliatka — a tree, sir, not one inch less than four hundred 
and fifteen feet in solid diameter ! — and I wish I may die in a 
minute if it isn't so ! Oh, you needn't look so questioning, 
gentlemen ; here's old Cap Saltmarsh can say whether I know 
what I'm talking about or not. I showed him the tree." 

Captain Saltmarsh. — " Come, now, cat your anchor, lad — ■ 
you're heaving too taut. You promised to show me that stun- 
ner, and I walked more than eleven mile with you through the 
cussedest jungle /ever see, a hunting for it ; but the tree you 
showed me finally warn't as big around as a beer cask, and you 
know that your own self,.Markiss." 

" Hear the man talk ! Of course the tree was reduced that 
way, but didn't I explain it ? Answer me, didn't I ? Didn't 
I say I wished you could have seen it when I first saw it ? 
When you got up on your ear and called me names, and said 
I had brought you eleven miles to look at a sapling, didn't I 
explain to you that all the whale-ships in the North Seas had 
been wooding oif of it for more than twenty-seven years ? And 
did you s'pose the tree could last ior-ever y con-found it ? I 



MY MARE MARGARETTA. 



553 



don't see why yon want to keep back things that way, and try 
to injure a person that's never done you any harm." 

Somehow this man's presence made me uncomfortable, and 
I was glad when a native arrived at that moment to say that 




ELEVEN MILES TO SEE. 

Muckawow, the most companionable and luxurious among the 
rude war-chiefs of the Islands, desired us to come over and help 
him enjoy a missionary whom he had found trespassing on his 
grounds. 

I think it was about ten days afterward that, as I finished a 
statement I was making for the instruction of a group of friends 
and acquaintances, and which made no pretence of being extra- 
ordinary, a familiar voice chimed instantly in on the heels of 
my last word, and said : 

" But, my dear sir, there was nothing remarkable about that 
horse, or the circumstance either — nothing in the world ! I 
mean no sort of offence when I say it, sir, but you really do 
not know anything whatever about speed. Bless your heart, 
if you could only have seen my mare Margaretta ; there was a 
beast ! — there was lightning for you ! Trot ! Trot is no name 



554 



AN EIGHTEEN MILE RAC 



for it — she flew ! How she could whirl a buggy along ! I 
started her out once, sir — Colonel Bilgewater, you recollect 
that animal perfectly well — I started her out about thirty or 
thirty-live yards ahead of the awfullest storm I ever saw in my 
life, and it chased us upwards of eighteen miles ! It did, by 
the everlasting hills ! And I'm telling you nothing but the 
unvarnished truth when I say that* not one single drop of rain 
fell on me — not a single drop, sir ! And I swear to it ! But 
my dog was a-swimming behind the wagon all the way I" 




CHASED BY A STORM. 



For a week or two I stayed mostly within doors, for I seemed 
to meet this person everywhere, and he had become utterly 
hateful to me. But one evening I dropped in on Captain Per- 
kins and his friends, and we had a sociable time. About ten 
o'clock I chanced to be talking about a merchant friend of 
mine, and without really intending it, the remark slipped out 
that he was a little mean and parsimonious about paying his 
workmen. Instantly, through the steam of a hot whiskey 
punch on the opposite side of the room, a remembered voice 
shot — and for a moment I trembled on the imminent verge of 
profanity : 



THE INCORPORATED COMPANY OF MEAN MEN. 555 



" Oh, my dear sir, really you expose yourself when you parade 
that as a surprising circumstance. Bless your heart and hide, 
you are ignorant of the very A B C of meanness ! ignorant as 
the unborn babe ! ignorant as unborn twins ! You don't know 
any thing about it ! It is pitiable to see you, sir, a well-spoken 
and prepossessing stranger, making such an enormous pow-wow 
here about a subject concerning which your ignorance is per- 
fectly humiliating ! Look me in the eye, if you please ; look 
me in the eye. John James Godfrey was the son of poor but 
honest parents in the State of Mississippi — boyhood friend of 
mine — bosom comrade in later years. Heaven rest his noble 
spirit, he is gone from us now. John James Godfrey was hired 
by the Hayblossom Mining Company in California to do some 
blasting for them — the " Incorporated Company of Mean Men," 
the boys used to call it. 
Well, one day he drilled a 
hole about four feet deep 
and put in an awful blast 
of powder, and was stand- 
ing over it ramming it 
down with an iron crowbar 
about nine foot long, when 
the cussed thing struck a 
spark and fired the powder, 
and scat ! away John God- 
frey whizzed like a sky- 
rocket, him and his crow- 
bar ! Well, sir, he kept 
on going up in the air 
higher and higher, till he 
didn't look any bigger than 
a boy — and he kept going 
on up higher and higher, 
till he didn't look any big- 
ger than a doll — and he kept on going up higher and higher, 
till he didn't look any bigger than a little small bee — and then 





LEAVING WORK. 



556 SAD FATE OF A LIAR. 

he went out of sight ! Presently he came in sight again, look- 
ing like a little small bee — and he came along down further 
and further, till he looked as big as a doll again — and down 
further and further, till he was as big as a boy again — and fur- 
ther and further, till he was a full-sized man once more ; and 
then him and his crowbar came awh-izzing down and lit right 
exactly in the same old tracks and went to r-ramming down, 
and r-ramming down, and r-ramming down again, just the same 
as if nothing had happened ! Now do you know, that poor 
cuss warn't gone only sixteen minutes, and yet that Incorpo- 
rated Company of Mean Men docked him for the lost time !'> 

I said I had the headache, and so excused myself and went 
home. And on my diary I entered "another night spoiled" 
by this offensive loafer. And a fervent curse was set down 
with it to keep the item company. And the very next day I 
packed up, out of all patience, and left the Island. 

Almost from the very beginning, I regarded that man as a 
liar. 

The line of points represents an interval of years. At the 
end of which time the opinion hazarded in that last sentence 
came to be gratifyingly and remarkably endorsed, and by 
wholly disinterested persons. The man Markiss was found 
one morning hanging to a beam of his own bedroom (the doors 
and windows securely fastened on the inside), dead ; and on 
his breast was pinned a paper in his own handwriting begging 
his friends to suspect no innocent person of having any thing 
to do with his death, for that it was the work of his own hands 
entirely. Yet the jury brought in the astounding verdict that 
deceased came to his death " by the hands of some person or 
persons unknown !" They explained that the perfectly unde- 
viating consistency of Markiss's character for thirty years tow- 
ered aloft as colossal and indestructible testimony, that what- 
ever statement he chose to make was entitled to instant and 
unquestioning acceptance as a lie. And they furthermore 
stated their belief that he was not dead, and instanced the 



EVIDENCE OF INSANITY 



557 



strong circumstantial evidence of his own word that he was 
dead — and beseeched the coroner to delay the funeral as long 
as possible, which was done. And so in the tropical climate 
of Lahaina the coffin stood open for seven days, and then even 
the loyal jury gave him up. But they sat on him again, and 
changed their verdict to " suicide induced by mental aberra- 
tion " — because, said they, with penetration, " he said he was 
dead, and he was dead ; and would he have told the truth if 
he had been in his right mind ? No> sir." 




CHAPTEE LXXVIII. 

AFTER half a year's luxurious vagrancy in the islands, I 
took shipping in a sailing vessel, and regretfully re- 
turned to San Francisco — a voyage in every way delightful, 
but without an incident : unless lying two long weeks in a dead 
calm, eighteen hundred miles from the nearest land, may rank 
as an incident. Schools of whales grew so tame that day after 
day they played about the ship among the porpoises and the 
sharks without the least apparent fear of us, and we pelted them 
with empty bottles for lack of better sport. Twenty-four hours 
afterward these bottles would be still lying on the glassy water 
under our noses, showing that the ship had not moved out of 
her place in all that time. The calm was absolutely breathless, 
and the surface of the sea absolutely without a wrinkle. For a 
whole day and part of a night we lay so close to another ship 
that had drifted to our vicinity, that we carried on conver- 
sations with her passengers, introduced each other by name, and 
became pretty intimately acquainted with people we had never 
heard of before, and have never heard of since. This was the 
only vessel we saw during the whole lonely voyage. We had 
fifteen passengers, and to show how hard pressed they were at 
last for occupation and amusement, I will mention that the 
gentlemen gave a good part of their time every day, during the 
calm, to trying to sit on an empty champagne bottle (lying on 
its side), and thread a needle without touching their heels to 
the deck, or falling over ; and the ladies sat in the shade of the 



PREPARATION FOR LECTURING. 



550 




OUR AMUSEMENTS. 



mainsail, and watched the enterprise with absorbing interest. 
"We were at sea five Sundays ; and yet, but for the almanac, 
we never would have known but that all the other days were 
Sundays too. 

I was home again, in 
San Francisco, without 
means and without em- 
ployment. I tortured my 
brain for a saving scheme 
of some kind, and at last 
a public lecture occurred 
to me! I sat down and 
wrote one, in a fever of 
hopeful anticipation. I 
showed it to several friends, 
but they all shook their heads. They 
said nobody would come to hear me, 
and I would make a humiliating fail- 
ure of it. They said that as I had never spoken in public, I 
would break down in the delivery, anyhow. I was disconsolate 
now. But at last an editor slapped me on the back and told 
me to "go ahead." He said, " Take the largest house in town, 
and charge a dollar a ticket." The audacity of the proposition 
was charming ; it seemed fraught with practical worldly wis- 
dom, however. The proprietor of the several theatres endorsed 
the advice, and said I might have his handsome new opera-house 
at half price — fifty dollars. In sheer desperation I took it — on 
credit, for sufficient reasons. In three days I did a hundred and 
fifty dollars' worth of printing and advertising, and was the 
most distressed and frightened creature on the Pacific coast. I 
could not sleep — who could, under such circumstances ? For 
other people there was facetiousness in the last line of my 
posters, but to me it was plaintive with a pang when I wrote it : 

" Doors open at 7£. The trouble will begin at 8." 

That line has done good service since. Showmen have 
borrowed it frequently. I have even seen it appended to a 



560 VALUABLE ASSISTANTS. 

newspaper advertisement reminding school pnpils in vacation 
what time next term would begin. As those three days of 
suspense dragged by, I grew more and more unhappy. I had 
sold two hundred tickets among my personal friends, but I feared 
they might not come. My lecture, which had seemed "humor- 
ous" to me, at first, grew steadily more and more dreary, till 
not a vestige of fun seemed left, and I grieved that I could not 
bring a coffin on the stage and turn the thing into a funeral. 
I was so panic-stricken, at last, that I went to three old friends, 
giants in stature, cordial by nature, and stormy- voiced, and said : 

" This thing is going to be a failure ; the jokes in it are so 
dim that nobody will ever see them ; I would like to have you 
sit in the parquette, and help me through." 

They said they would. Then I went to the wife of a pop- 
ular citizen, and said that if she was willing to do me a very 
great kindness, I would be glad if she and her husband would 
sit prominently in the left-hand stage-box, where the whole 
house could see them. I explained that I should need help, and 
would turn toward her and smile, as a signal, when I had been 
delivered of an obscure joke — " and then," I added, " don't 
wait to investigate, but respond ! " 

She promised. Down the street I met a man I never had 
seen before. He had been drinking, and was beaming with 
smiles and good nature. He said : 

" My name's Sawyer. You don't know me, but that don't 
matter. I haven't got a cent, but if you knew how bad I wanted 
to laugh, you'd give me a ticket. Come, now, what do you 
say?" 

" Is your laugh hung on a hair-trigger ? — that is, is it criti- 
cal, or can you get it off easy f " 

My drawling infirmity of speech so affected him that he 
laughed a specimen or two that struck me as being about the 
article I wanted, and I gave him a ticket, and appointed him to 
sit in the second circle, in the centre, and be responsible for 
that division of the house. I gave him minute instructions 
about how to detect indistinct jokes, and then went away, and 
left him chuckling placidly over the novelty of the idea. 



MY FIRST ATTEMPT. 



561 



I ate nothing on the last of the three eventful days — I only 
suffered. I had advertised that on this third day the box-office 
would be opened for the sale of reserved seats. I crept down 
to the theatre at four in the afternoon to see if any sales had 
been made. The ticket seller was gone, the box-office was 
locked up. I had to swallow suddenly, or my heart would have 
got out. " ISTo sales," I said to myself; " I might have known 
it." I thought of suicide, pretended illness, flight. I thought 
of these things in earnest, for I was very miserable and scared. 
But of course I had to drive them away, and prepare to meet my 
fate. I could not wait for half-past seven — I wanted to face the 
horror, and end it — the feeling of many a man doomed to hang, 

no doubt. I went down 
back streets at six o'clock, 
and entered the theatre by 
the back door. I stumbled 
my way in the dark among 
the ranks of canvas scen- 
ery, and stood on the 
stage. The house was gloo- 
my and silent, and its emp- 
tiness depressing. I went 
into the dark among the 
scenes again, and for an 
hour and a half gave myself 
up to the horrors, wholly 
unconscious of everything 
else. Then I heard a mur- 
mur; it rose higher and 
higher, and ended in a 
crash, mingled with cheers. 
It made my hair raise, it 
was so close to me, and so 
loud. There was a pause, 
and then another; pres- 
ently came a third, and before I well knew what I was about, I 

was in the middle of the stage, staring at a sea of faces, bewildered 
36f 




SEVEKE CASE OF STAGE-FRIGHT. 



562 



THE AUDIENCE CARRIED. 



by the fierce glare of the lights, and quaking in every limb 
with a terror that seemed like to take my life away. The 
house was full, aisles and all ! 

The tumult in my heart and brain and legs continued a full 
minute before I could gain any command over myself. Then 
I recognized the charity and the friendliness in the faces before 
me, and little by little my fright melted away, and I began to 




talk Within three or four minutes I was comfortable, and 
even content. My three chief allies, with three auxiliaries, 
were on hand, in the parquette, all sitting together, all armed 

with bludgeons, and all 



ready to make an onslaught 
upon the feeblest joke that 
might show its head. And 
whenever a joke did fall, 
their bludgeons came down 
and their faces seemed to 
split from ear to ear ; Saw- 
yer, whose hearty counte- 
nance was seen looming 
redly in the centre of the 
second circle, took it up, 
and the house was carried 
handsomely. Inferior jokes 
Presently I delivered a bit of 




SAWYER IN THE CIRCLE. 



never fared so royally before. 



A PATHETIC JOKE. 563 

serious matter with impressive unction (it was my pet), and 
the audience listened with an absorbed Irtish that gratified me 
more than any applause ; and as I dropped the last word of 

the clause, I happened to turn and catch Mrs. 's intent 

and waiting eye ; my conversation with her flashed upon me, 
and in spite of all I could do I smiled. She took it for the 
signal, and promptly delivered a mellow laugh that touched 
off the whole audience ; and the explosion that followed was 
the triumph of the evening. I thought that that honest man 
Sawyer would choke himself; and as for the bludgeons, they 
performed like pile-drivers. But my poor little morsel of 
pathos was ruined. It was taken in good faith as an inten- 
tional joke, and the prize one of the entertainment, and I 
wisely let it go at that. 

All the papers were kind in the morning; my appetite 
returned ; I had abundance of money. All's well that ends 
well. 



CHAPTEK LXXIX. 

I LAUNCHED out as a lecturer, now, with great boldness. 
I had the field all to myself, for public lectures were almost 
an unknown commodity in the Pacific market. They are not 
so rare, now, I suppose. I took an old personal friend along 
to play agent for me, and for two or three weeks we roamed 
through Nevada and California and had a very cheerful time 
of it. Two days before I lectured in Virginia City, two stage- 
coaches were robbed within two miles of the town. The dar- 
ing act was committed just at dawn, by six masked men, who 
sprang up alongside the coaches, presented revolvers at the 
heads of the drivers and passengers, and commanded a general 
dismount. Everybody climbed down, and the robbers took 
their watches and every cent they had. Then they took gun- 
powder and blew up the express specie boxes and got their 
contents. The leader of the robbers was a small, quick-spoken 
man, and the fame of his vigorous manner and his intrepidity 
was in everybody's mouth when we arrived. 

The night after instructing Yirginia, I walked over the 
desolate " divide " and down to Gold Hill, and lectured there. 
The lecture done, I stopped to talk with a friend, and did not 
start back till eleven. The " divide " was high, unoccupied 
ground, between the towns, the scene of twenty midnight 
murders and a hundred robberies. As we climbed up and 
stepped out on this eminence, the Gold Hill lights dropped 
out of sight at our backs, and the night closed down gloomy 



ATTACKED BY HIGHWAYMEN. 565 

and dismal. A sharp wind swept the place, too, and chilled 
our perspiring bodies through. 

" I tell you I don't like this place at night," said Mike the 
agent. 

" Well, don't speak so loud," I said. " You needn't remind 
anybody that we are here." 

Just then a dim figure approached me from the direction of 
Virginia — a man, evidently. He came straight at me, and I 
stepped aside to let him pass ; he stepped in the way and con- 
fronted me again. Then I saw that he had a mask on and 
was holding something in my face — I heard a click-click and 
recognized a revolver in dim outline. I pushed the barrel 
aside with my hand and said : 

"Don't!" 

He ejaculated sharply : 

" Your watch ! Your money ! " 

I said : 

"You can have them with pleasure — but take the pistol 
away from my face, please. It makes me shiver." 

" No remarks ! Hand out your money ! " 

" Certainly— I—" 

" Put up your hands ! Don't you go for a weapon ! Put 
'em up ! Higher ! " 

I held them above my head. 

A pause. Then : 

" Are you going to hand out your money or not V ' 

I dropped my hands to my pockets and said : 

Certainly! I—" 

" Put up your hands / Do you want your head blown off? 
Higher !" 

I put them above my head again. 

Another pause. 

Are you going to hand out your money or not f Ah-ah^ 
again ? Put up your hands ! By George, you want the head 
shot off you awful bad ! " 

" Well, friend, I'm trying my best to please you. You telJ 



566 "PUT UP YOUR HANDS." 

me to give up my money, and when I reach for it you tell me 
to put up my hands. If you would only — . Oh, now — don't ! 
All six of you at me ! That other man will get away while.— 
Now please take some of those revolvers out of my face — do, 
if you please ! Every time one of them clicks, my liver comes 
up into my throat ! If you have a mother — any of you — or if 
any of you have ever had a mother — or a — grandmother — or 
a—" 

" Cheese it ! Will you give up your money, or have we 
got to — . There-there — none of that ! Put up your hands ! " 

" Gentlemen — I know you are gentlemen by your — " 

" Silence ! If you want to be facetious, young man, there 
are times and places more fitting. This is a serious business." 

"You prick the marrow of my opinion. The funerals I 
have attended in my time were comedies compared to it. 
Now / think— " 

" Curse your palaver ! Your money ! — your money ! — 
your money ! Hold ! — put up your hands ! " 

" Gentlemen, listen to reason. You see how I am situated 
— now dovbt put those pistols so close — I smell the powder. 
You see how I am situated. If I had four hands — so that I 
could hold up two and — " 

" Throttle him ! Gag him ! Kill him !" 

" Gentlemen, don't ! Nobody' <* watching the other fellow. 
Why don't some of you — . Ouch ! Take it away, please ! 
Gentlemen, you see that I've got to hold up my hands ; and 
so I can't take out my money — but if you'll be so kind as to 
take it out for me, I will do as much for you some — " 

" Search him Beauregard — and stop his jaw with a bullet, 
quick, if he wags it again. Help Beauregard, Stonewall." 

Then three of them, with the small, spry leader, adjourned 
to Mike and fell to searching him. I was so excited that my 
lawless fancy tortured me to ask my two men all manner of 
facetious questions about their rebel brother-generals of the 
South, but, considering the order they had received, it was 
but common prudence to keep still. When everything had 






FORMIDABLE AND RENOWNED FOES. 567 

been taken from me, — watch, money, and a multitude of trifles 
of small value, — I supposed I was free, and forthwith put my 
cold hands into my empty pockets and began an inoffensive 




A PREDICAMENT. 



jig to warm my feet and stir up some latent courage— but in- 
stantly all pistols were at my head, and the order came again: 

" Be still ! Put up your hands ! And keep them up ! " 

They stood Mike up alongside of me, with strict orders to 
keep his hands above his head, too, and then the chief high- 
wayman said : 

"Beauregard, hide behind that boulder; Phil Sheridan, 
you hide behind that other one ; Stonewall Jackson, put your- 
self behind that sage-bush there. Keep your pistols bearing 
on these fellows, and if they take down their hands within ten 
minutes, or move a single peg, let them have it ! " 

Then three disappeared in the gloom toward the several 
ambushes, and the other three disappeared down the road to- 
ward Yirginia. 

It was depressingly still, and miserably cold. JSTow this 
whole thing was a practical joke, and the robbers were per- 
sonal friends of ours in disguise, and twenty more lay hidden 



56S THE WHOLE THING A JOKE. 

within ten feet of us during the whole operation, listening. 
Mike knew all this, and was in the joke, but I suspected noth- 
ing of it. To me it was most uncomfortably genuine. 

When we had stood there in the middle of the road five 
minutes, like a couple of idiots, with our hands aloft, freezing 
to death by inches, Mike's interest in the joke began to wane. 
He said : 

" The time's up, now, aint it ? " 

" No, you keep still. Do you want to take any chances with 
those bloody savages % " 

Presently Mike said : 

" Now the time's up, anyway. I'm freezing." 

" Well freeze. Better freeze than carry your brains home 
in a basket. Maybe the time is up, but how do we know ? — 
got no watch to tell by. I mean to give them good measure. 
I calculate to stand here fifteen minutes or die. Don't you 
move." 

So, without knowing it, I was making one joker very sick 
of his contract. When we took our arms down at last, they 
were achiug with cold and fatigue, and when we went sneak- 
ing off, the dread I was in that the time might not yet be up 
and that we would feel bullets in a moment, was not sufficient 
to draw all my attention from the misery that racked my 
stiffened body. 

The joke of these highwayman friends of ours was mainly a 
joke upon themselves ; for they had waited for me on the cold 
hill-top two full hours before I came, and there was very little 
fun in that ; they were so chilled that it took them a couple of 
weeks to get warm again. Moreover, I never had a thought 
that they would kill me to get money which it was so perfect- 
ly easy to get without any such folly, and so they did not 
really frighten me bad enough to make their enjoyment worth 
the trouble they had taken. I was only afraid that their wea- 
pons would go off accidentally. Their very numbers inspired 
me with confidence that no blood would be intentionally spilled. 
They were not smart ; they ought to have sent only one high- 



FAREWELL TO SAN FRANCISCO. 



569 



cayman, with a double-barrelled shot gun, if they desired to 
see the author of this volume climb a tree. 

However, I suppose that in the long run I got the largest 
share of the joke at last ; and in a shape not foreseen by the 
highwaymen ; for the chilly exposure on the " divide " while 
I was in a perspiration gave me a cold which developed itself 
into a troublesome disease and kept my hands idle some three 
months, besides costing me quite a sum in doctor's bills. Since 




BEST PART OF THE JOKE. 



then I play no practical jokes on people and generally lose my 
temper when one is played upon me. 

"When I returned to San Francisco I projected a pleasure 
journey to Japan and thence westward around the world ; but a 
desire to see home again changed my mind, and I took a berth 
in the steamship, bade good-bye to the friendliest land and 
livest, heartiest community on our continent, and came by 
the way of the Isthmus to New York — a trip that was not 
much of a pic-nic excursion, for the cholera broke out among 
us on the passage and we buried two or three bodies at sea 
every day. I found home a dreary place after my long ab- 
sence ; for half the children I had known were now wearing 



570 



A STORY WITH A MORAL. 



whiskers or waterfalls, and few of the grown people I had been 
acquainted with remained at their hearthstones prosperous and 
happy — some of them had wandered to other scenes, some were 
in jail, and the rest had been hanged. These changes touched 
me deeply, and I went away and joined the famous Quaker 
City European Excursion and carried my tears to foreign 
lands. 

Thus, after seven years of vicissitudes, ended a " pleasure 
trip " to the silver mines of Nevada which had originally been 
intended to occupy only three months. However, I usually 
miss my calculations further than that. 



MORAL. 



If the reader thinks he is done, now, and that this book 
has no moral to it, he is in error. The moral of it is this : If 
you are of any account, stay at home and make your way by 
faithful diligence ; but if you are " no account," go away from 
home, and then you will have to work, whether you want to 
or not. Thus you become a blessing to your friends by ceas- 
ing to be a nuisance to them — if the people you go among 
suffer by the operation. 




APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX 



BRIEF SKETCH OF MORMON HISTORY. 

Mormonism is only about forty years old, but its career has been full of 
stir and adventure from the beginning, and is likely to remain so to the end. 
Its adherents have been hunted and hounded from one end of the country 
to the other, and the result is that for years they have hated all " Gentiles " 
indiscriminately and with all their might. Joseph Smith, the finder of the 
Book of Mormon and founder of the religion, was driven from State to 
State with his mysterious copperplates and the miraculous stones he read 
their inscriptions with. Finally he instituted his " church " in Ohio and 
Brigham Young joined it. The neighbors began to persecute, and apostasy 
commenced. Brigham held to the faith and worked hard. He arrested 
desertion. He did more — he added converts in the midst of the trouble. 
He rose in favor and importance with the brethren. He was made one of 
the Twelve Apostles of the Church. He shortly fought his way to a higher 
post and a more powerful — President of the Twelve. The neighbors rose 
up and drove the Mormons out of Ohio, and they settled in Missouri. 
Brigham went with them. The Missourians drove them out and they retreated 
to Nauvoo, Illinois. They prospered there, and built a temple which made 
some pretensions to architectural grace and achieved some celebrity in a 
section of country where a brick court-house with a tin dome and a cupola 
on it was contemplated with reverential awe. But the Mormons were 
badgered and harried again by their neighbors. All the proclamations 
Joseph Smitn could issue denouncing polygamy and repudiating it as utterly 
anti-Mormon were of no avail ; the people of the neighborhood, on both 
sides of the Mississippi, claimed that polygamy was practised by the Mor- 
mons, and not only polygamy but a little of everything that was bad. 
Brigham returned from a mission to England, where he had established a 
Mormon newspaper, and he brought back with him several hundred converts 
to his preaching. His influence among the brethren augmented with every 
move he made. Finally Nauvoo was invaded by the Missouri and Illinois 









MORMON HISTORY. 573 

Gentiles, and Joseph Smith killed. A Mormon named Rigdon assumed the 
Presidency of the Mormon church and government, in Smith's place, and even 
tried his hand at a prophecy or two. But a greater than he was at hand. 
Brigham seized the advantage of the hour and without other authority than 
superior brain and nerve and will, hurled Rigdon from his high place and 
occupied it himself. He did more. He launched an elaborate curse at 
Rigdon and his disciples ; and he pronounced Rigdon's " prophecies " ema- 
nations from the devil, and ended by " handing the false prophet over to 
the buffetings of Satan for a thousand years " — probably the longest term 
ever inflicted in Illinois. The people recognized their master. They 
straightway elected Brigham Young President, by a prodigious majority, 
and have never faltered in their devotion to him from that day to this. 
Brigham had forecast — a quality which no other prominent Mormon has 
probably ever possessed. He recognized that it was better to move to the 
wilderness than be moved. By his command the people gathered together 
their meagre effects, turned their backs upon their homes, and their faces 
toward the wilderness, and on a bitter night in February filed in sorrowful 
procession across the frozen Mississippi, lighted on their way by the glare 
from their burning temple, whose sacred furniture their own hands had 
fired ! They camped, several days afterward, on the western verge of Iowa, 
and poverty, want, hunger, cold, sickness, grief and persecution did their 
work, and many succumbed and died — martyrs, fair and true, whatever else 
they might have been. Two years the remnant remained there, while 
Brigham and a small party crossed the country and founded Great Salt Lake 
City, purposely choosing a land which was outside the ownership and juris- 
diction of the hated American nation. Note that. This was in 1847. 
Brigham moved his people there and got them settled just in time to see 
disaster fall again. For the war closed and Mexico ceded Brigham's refuge 
to the enemy — the United States ! In 1849 the Mormons organized a " free 
and independent " government and erected the " State of Deseret," with 
Brigham Young as its head. But the very next year Congress deliberately 
snubbed it and created the " Territory of Utah " out of the same accumula- 
tion of mountains, sage-brush, alkali and general desolation, — but made 
Brigham Governor of it. Then for years the enormous migration across the 
plains to California poured through the land of the Mormons and yet the 
church remained staunch and true to its lord and master. Neither hunger, 
thirst, poverty, grief, hatred, contempt, nor persecution could drive the Mor- 
mons from their faith or their allegiance ; and even the thirst for gold, 
which gleaned the flower of the youth and strength of many nations was 
not able to entice them ! That was the final test. An experiment that 
could survive that was an experiment with some substance to it somewhere. 
Great Salt Lake City throve finely, and so did Utah. One of the last 
things which Brigham Young had done before leaving Iowa, was to appear 
in the pulpit dressed to personate the worshipped and lamented prophet 
Smith, and confer the prophetic succession, with all its dignities, emolu- 
ments and authorities, upon " President Brigham Young ! " The people 



574 APPENDIX A. 

accepted the pious fraud with the maddest enthusiasm, and Brigham's 
power was sealed and secured for all time. Within five years afterward he 
openly added polygamy to the tenets of the church by authority of a " reve- 
lation " which he pretended had been received nine years before by Joseph 
Smith, albeit Joseph is amply on record as denouncing polygamy to the day 
of his death. 

Now was Brigham become a second Andrew Johnson in the small begin- 
ning and steady progress of his official grandeur. He had served succes- 
sively as a disciple in the ranks ; home missionary ; foreign missionary ; 
editor and publisher ; Apostle ; President of the Board of Apostles ; Presi- 
dent of all Mormondom, civil and ecclesiastical ; successor to the great 
Joseph by the will of heaven ; " prophet," " seer," " revelator." There was 
but one dignity higher which he could aspire to, and he reached out modestly 
and took that — he proclaimed himself a God ! 

He claims that he is to have a heaven of his own hereafter, and that he 
will be its God, and his wives and children its goddesses, princes and prin- 
cesses. Into it all faithful Mormons will be admitted, with their families, 
and will take rank and consequence according to the number of their wives 
and children. If a disciple dies before he has had time to accumulate 
enough wives and children to enable him to be respectable in the next 
world any friend can marry a few wives and raise a few children for him 
after he is dead, and they are duly credited to his account and his heavenly 
status advanced accordingly. 

Let it be borne in mind that the majority of tne Mormons have always 
been ignorant, simple, of an inferior order of intellect, unacquainted with 
the world and its ways ; and let it be borne in mind that the wives of these 
Mormons are necessarily after the same pattern and their children likely to 
be fit representatives of such a conjunction ; and then let it be remembered 
that for forty years these creatures have been driven, driven, driven, relent- 
lessly ! and mobbed, beaten, and shot down ; cursed, despised, expatriated ; 
banished to a remote desert, whither they journeyed gaunt with famine and 
disease, disturbing the ancient solitudes with their lamentations and mark- 
ing the long way with graves of their dead — and all because they were 
simply trying to live and worship God in the way which they believed with 
all their hearts and souls to be the true one. Let all these things be borne 
in mind, and then it will not be hard to account for the deathless hatred 
which the Mormons bear our people and our government. 

That hatred has " fed fat its ancient grudge " ever since Mormon Utah 
developed into a self-supporting realm and the church waxed rich and 
strong. Brigham as Territorial Governor made it plain that Mormondom 
was for the Mormons. The United States tried to rectify all that by ap- 
pointing territorial officers from New England and other anti-Mormon locali- 
ties, but Brigham prepared to make their entrance into his dominions 
difficult. Three thousand United States troops had to go across the plains 
and put these gentlemen in office. And after they were in office they were 
as helpless as so many stone images. They made laws which nobody 



MORMON HISTORY. 575 

minded and which could not be executed. The federal judges opened court 
in a land filled with crime and violence and sat as holiday spectacles for in- 
solent crowds to gape at — for there was nothing to try, nothing to do, noth- 
ing on the dockets ! And if a Gentile brought a suit, the Mormon jury 
would do just as it pleased about bringing in a verdict, and when the judg- 
ment of the court was rendered no Mormon cared for it and no officer could 
execute it. Our Presidents shipped one cargo of officials after another to 
Utah, but the result was always the same — they sat in a blight for awhile* 
they fairly feasted on scowls and insults day by day, they saw every attempt 
to do their official duties find its reward in darker and darker looks, and in 
secret threats and warnings of a more and more dismal nature — and at last 
they either succumbed and became despised tools and toys of the Mormons, 
or got scared and discomforted beyond all endurance and left the Territory. 
If a brave officer kept on courageously till his pluck was proven, some pliant 
Buchanan or Pierce would remove him and appoint a stick in his place. In 
1857 General Harney came very near being appointed Governor of Utah. 
And so it came very near being Harney governor and Cradlebaugh j udge ! — 
two men who never had any idea of fear further than the sort of murky 
comprehension of it which they were enabled to gather from the dictionary. 
Simply (if for nothing else) for the variety they would have made in a 
rather monotonous history of Federal servility and helplessness, it is a pity 
they were not fated to hold office together in Utah. 

Up to the date of our visit to Utah, such had been the Territorial record. 
The Territorial government established there had been a hopeless failure, 
and Brigham Young was the only real power in the land. He was an abso- 
lute monarch — a monarch who defied our President — a monarch who 
laughed at our armies when they camped about his capital — a monarch who 
received without emotion the news that the august Congress of the United 
States had enacted a solemn law against polygamy, and then went forth 
calmly and married twenty-five or thirty more wives. 



B. 

THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE. 

The persecutions which the Mormons suffered so long — and which they 
consider they still suffer in not being allowed to govern themselves — they 
have endeavored and are still endeavoring to repay. The now almost for- 
gotten " Mountain Meadows massacre " was their work. It was very famous 
in its day. The whole United States rang with its horrors. A few items 
will refresh the reader's memory. A great emigrant train from Missouri- 
and Arkansas passed through Salt Lake City and a few disaffected Mormons 
joined it for the sake of the strong protection it afforded for their escape. 
In that matter lay sufficient cause for hot retaliation by the Mormon chiefs. 
Besides, these one hundred and forty-five or one hundred and fifty unsus- 
pecting emigrants being in part from Arkansas, where a noted Mormon 
missionary had lately been killed, and in part from Missouri, a State re- 
membered with execrations as a bitter persecutor of the saints when they 
were few and poor and friendless, here were substantial additional grounds 
for lack of love for these wayfarers. And finally, this train was rich, very 
rich in cattle, horses, mules and other property — and how could the Mormons 
consistently keep up their coveted resemblance to the Israelitish tribes and 
not seize the " spoil " of an enemy when the Lord had so manifestly 
" delivered it into their hand ? " 

Wherefore, according to Mrs. C. V. Waite's entertaining book, " The 
Mormon Prophet," it transpired that — 

" A ' revelation ' from Brigham Young, as Great Grand Archee or God, 
was dispatched to President J. C. Haight, Bishop Higbee and J. D. Lee 
(adopted son of Brigham), commanding them to raise all the forces they 
could muster and trust, follow those cursed Gentiles (so read the revelation), 
attack them disguised "as Indians, and with the arrows of the Almighty make 
a elean sweep of them, and leave none to tell the tale ; and if they needed 
any assistance they were commanded to hire the Indians as their allies, 
promising them a share of the booty. They were to be neither slothful nor 
negligent in their duty, and to be punctual in sending the teams back to 
him before winter set in, for this was the mandate of Almighty God." 



THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE. 577 

The command of the " revelation " was faithfully obeyed. A large party 
of Mormons, painted and tricked out as Indians, overtook the train of emi- 
grant wagons some three hundred miles south of Salt Lake City, and made 
an attack. But the emigrants threw up earthworks, made fortresses of their 
wagons and defended themselves gallantly and successfully for five days ! 
Your Missouri or Arkansas gentleman is not much afraid of the sort of 
scurvy apologies for " Indians " which the southern part of Utah affords. 
He would stand up and fight five hundred of them. 

At the end of the five days the Mormons tried military strategy. They 
retired to the upper end of the " Meadows," resumed civilized apparel, 
washed off their paint, and then, heavily armed, drove down in wagons to 
the beleaguered emigrants, bearing a flag of truce ! When the emigrants 
saw white men coming they threw down their guns and welcomed them 
with cheer after cheer ! And, all unconscious of the poetry of it, no doubt, 
they lifted a little child aloft, dressed in white, in answer to the flag of 
truce ! 

The leaders of the timely white " deliverers " were President Haight and 
Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mormon Church. Mr. Cradlebaugh, who served 
a term as a Federal Judge in Utah and afterward was sent to Congress from 
Nevada, tells in a speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next pro- 
ceeded : 

" They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and represented 
them as being very mad. They also proposed to intercede and settle the 
matter with the Indians. After several hours parley they, having (appa- 
rently) visited the Indians, gave the ultimatum of the savages ; which was, 
that the emigrants should march out of their camp, leaving everything be- 
hind them, even their guns. It was promised by the Mormon bishops that 
they would bring a force and guard the emigrants back to the settlements. 
The terms were agreed to, the emigrants being desirous of saving the lives 
of their families. The Mormons retired, and subsequently appeared with 
thirty or forty armed men. The emigrants were marched out, the women 
and children in front and the men behind, the Mormon guard being in the 
rear. When they had marched in this way about a mile, at a given signal 
the slaughter commenced. The men were almost all shot down at the fkst 
fire from the guard. Two only escaped, who fled to the desert, and were 
followed one hundred and fifty miles before they were overtaken and 
slaughtered. The women and children ran on, two or three hundred yards 
further, when they were overtaken and with the aid of the Indians they 
were slaughtered. Seventeen individuals only, of all the emigrant party, 
were spared, and they were little children, the eldest of them being only 
seven years old. Thus, on the 10th day of September, 1857, was consum- 
mated one of the most cruel, cowardly and bloody murders known in our 
history." 

The number of persons butchered by the Mormons on this occasion was 
one hundred and twenty. 

With unheard-of temerity Judge Cradlebaugh opened his court and pro- 

37f 



57S • APPENDIX B. 

ceeded to make Morinondom answer for the massacre. And what a spectacle 
it must have been to see this grim veteran, solitary and alone in his pride 
and his pluck, glowering down on his Mormon jury and Mormon auditory, 
deriding them by turns, and by turns " breathing threatenings and slaugh- 
ter ! " 

An editorial in the Territorial Enterprise of that day says of him and of 
the occasion : 

" He spoke and acted with the fearlessness and resolution of a Jackson ; 
but the jury failed to indict, or even report on the charges, while threats of 
violeuce were heard in every quarter, and an attack on the U. S. troops in- 
timated, if he persisted in his course. 

" Finding that nothing could be done with the juries, they were discharged, 
with a scathing rebuke from the judge. And then, sitting as a committing 
magistrate, he commenced his task alone. He examined witnesses, made 
arrests in every quarter, and created a consternation in the camps of the 
saints greater than any they had ever witnessed before, since Mormondom 
was born. At last accounts terrified elders and bishops were decamping to 
save their necks ; and developments of the most startling character were 
being made, implicating the highest Church dignitaries in the many murders 
and robberies committed upon the Gentiles during the past eight years." 

Had Harney been Governor, Cradlebaugh would have been supported in 
his work, and the absolute proofs adduced by him of Mormon guilt in this 
massacre and in a number of previous murders, would have conferred gra- 
tuitous coffins upon certain citizens, together with occasion to use them. 
But Cumming was the Federal Governor, and he, under a curious pretense 
of impartiality, sought to screen the Mormons from the demands of justice. 
On one occasion he even went so far as to publish his protest against the use 
of the U. S. troops in aid of Cradlebaugh's proceedings. 

Mrs. C. V. Waite closes her interesting detail of the great massacre with 
the following remark and accompanying summary of the testimony — and 
the summary is concise, accurate and reliable : 

" For the benefit of those who may still be disposed to doubt the guilt of 
Young and his Mormons in this transaction, the testimony is here collated 
and circumstances given which go not merely to implicate but to fasten 
conviction upon them by ' confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ : ' 

" 1, The evidence of Mormons themselves, engaged in the affair, as shown 
by the statements of Judge Cradlebaugh and Deputy U. S. Marshal Rodgers. 

" 2. The failure of Brigham Young to embody any account of it in his 
Report as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Also his failure to make any 
allusion to it whatever from the pulpit, until several years after the occur- 
rence. 

" 3. The flight to the mountains of men high in authority in the Mormon 
Church and State, when this affair was brought to the ordeal of a judicial 
investigation. 

" 4. The failure of the Deseret News, the Church organ, and the only 
paper then published in the Territory, to notice the massacre until severaJ 






THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE. 579 

months afterward, and then only to deny that Mormons were engaged 
in it. 

" 5. The testimony of the children saved from the massacre. 

" 6. The children and the property of the emigrants found in possession 
of the Mormons, and that possession traced back to the very day after the 
massacre. 

" 7. The statements of Indians in the neighborhood of the scene of the 
massacre : these statements are shown, not only by Cradlebaugh and 
Rodgers, but by a number of military officers, and by J. Forney, who was, 
in 1859, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory. To all these 
were such statements freely and frequently made by the Indians. 

" 8. The testimony of R. P. Campbell, Capt. 2d Dragoons, who was sent 
in the Spring of 1859 to Santa Clara, to protect travelers on the road to 
California and to inquire into Indian depredations/ 1 



c. 



CONCERNING A FRIGHTFUL ASSASSINATION THAT WAS NEVER 
CONSUMMATED. 

[If ever there was a harmless man, it is Conrad Wiegand, of Gold Hill, 
Nevada. If ever there was a gentle spirit that thought itself unfired gun- 
powder and latent ruin, it is Conrad Wiegand. If ever there was an oyster 
that fancied itself a whale ; or a jack-o'lantern, confined to a swamp, that 
fancied itself a planet with a billion-mile orbit ; or a summer zephyr that 
deemed itself a hurricane, it is Conrad Wiegand. Therefore, what wonder is 
it that when he says a thing, he thinks the world listens ; that when he 
does a thing the world stands still to look ; and that when he suffers, there 
is a convulsion of nature ? When I met Conrad, he was " Superintendent of 
the Gold Hill Assay Office " — and he was not only its Superintendent, but its 
entire force. And he was a street preacher, too, with a mongrel religion of 
his own invention, whereby he expected to regenerate the universe. This 
was years ago. Here latterly he has entered journalism ; and his journalism 
is what it might be expected to be : colossal to ear, but pigmy to the eye. 
It is extravagant grandiloquence confined to a newspaper about the size of a 
double letter sheet. He doubtless edits, sets the type, and prints his paper, 
all alone ; but he delights to speak of the concern as if it occupies a block 
and employs a thousand men. 

[Something less than two years ago, Conrad assailed several people 
mercilessly in his little " People's Tribune," and got himself into trouble. 
Straightway he airs the affair in the " Territorial Enterprise," in a commu- 
nication over his own signature, and I propose to reproduce it here, in all its 
native simplicity and more than human candor. Long as it is, it is well 
worth reading, for it is the richest specimen of journalistic literature the 
kistory of America can furnish, perhaps :] 

From the Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 20, 1870. 
A SEEMING PLOT FOR ASSASSINATION MISCARRIED. 



To the Editor of the Enterprise : Months ago, when Mr. Sutro in- 
cidentally exposed mining management on the Comstock, and among others 



PERSECUTION OF THE HERO. 581 

roused me to protest against its continuance, in great kindness you warned 
me that any attempt by publications, by public meetings and by legislative 
action, aimed at the correction of chronic mining evils in Storey County, 
must entail upon me (a) business ruin, (&) the burden of all its costs, (c) per- 
sonal violence, and if my purpose were persisted in, then (d) assassination, 
and after all nothing would be effected. 

TOUR PROPHECY FULFILLING. 

In large part at least your prophecies have been fulfilled, for (a) assaying, 
which was well attended to in the Gold Hill Assay Office (of which I am 
superintendent), in consequence of my publications, has been taken else- 
where, so the President of one of the companies assures me. With no 
reason assigned, other work has been taken away. With but one or two 
important exceptions, our assay business now consists simply of the gleanings 
of the vicinity, (b) Though my own personal donations to the People's 
Tribute Association have already exceeded $1,500, outside of our own num- 
bers we have received (in money) less than $300 as contributions and sub- 
scriptions for the journal, (c) On Thursday last, on the main street in Gold 
Hill, near noon, with neither warning nor cause assigned, by a powerful 
blow I was felled to the ground, and while down I was kicked by a man 
who it. would seem had been led to believe that I had spoken derogatorily of 
him. By whom he was so induced to believe I am as yet unable to say. On 
Saturday last I was again assailed and beaten by a man who first informed 
me why he did so, and who persisted in making his assault even after the 
erroneous impression under which he also was at first laboring had been 
cleavly and repeatedly pointed out. This same man, after failing through 
intimidation to elicit from me the names of our editorial contributors, against 
giving which he knew me to be pledged, beat himself weary upon me with 
a raw hide, I not resisting, and then pantingly threatened me with permanent 
disfiguring mayhem, if ever again I should introduce his name into print, 
and who but a few minutes before his attack upon me assured me that the 
only reason I was "permitted" to reach home alive on Wednesday evening 
last (at which time the People's Tribune was issued) was, that he deems 
me only half-witted, and be it remembered the very next morning I was 
knocked down and kicked by a man who seemed to be prepared for flight. 

[Re sees doom impending ;] 

WHEN WILL THE CIRCLE JOIN? 

How long before the whole of your prophecy will be fulfilled I cannot 
say, but under the shadow of so much fulfillment in so short a time, and 
with such threats from a man who is one of the most prominent exponents 
of the San Francisco mining-ring staring me and this whole community 
defiantly in the face and pointing to a completion of your augury, do you 
blame me for feeling that this communication is the last I shall ever write 
for the Press, especially when a sense alike of personal self-respect, of duty 
to this money-oppressed and fear-ridden community, and of American fealty 



582 APPENDIX C. 

to the spirit of true Liberty all command me, and each more loudly than 
love of life itself, to declare the name of that prominent man to be JOHN 
B. WINTERS, President of the Yellow Jacket Company, a political aspirant 
and a military General ? The name of his partially duped accomplice and 
abettor in this last marvelous assault, is no other than PHILIP LYNCH, 
Editor and Proprietor of the Gold Hill News. 

Despite the insult and wrong heaped upon me by John B. Winters, on 
Saturday afternoon, only a glimpse of which I shall be able to afford your 
readers, so much do I deplore clinching (by publicity) a serious mistake of 
any one, man or woman, committed under natural and not self-wrought 
passion, in view of his great apparent excitement at the time and in view of 
the almost perfect privacy of the assault, I am far from sure that I should 
not have given him space for repentance before exposing him, were it not 
that he himself has so far exposed the matter as to make it the common 
talk of the town that he has horsewhipped me. That fact having been 
made public, all the facts in connection need to be also, or silence on my 
part would seem more than singular, and with many would be proof either 
that I was conscious of some unworthy aim in publishing the article, or else 
that my " non-combatant " principles are but a convenient cloak alike of physi- 
cal and moral cowardice. I therefore shall try to present a graphic but 
truthful picture of this whole affair, but shall forbear all comments, pre- 
suming that the editors of our own journal, if others do not, will speak 
freely and fittingly upon this subject in our next number, whether I shall 
then be dead or living, for my death will not stop, though it may suspend, 
the publication of the People's Tribune. 

[The "non-combatant" sticks to principle, out takes along a friend or two 
of a conveniently different stripe :] 

THE TRAP SET. 

On Saturday morning John B. Winters sent verbal word to the Gold Hill 
Assay Office that he desired to see me at the Yellow Jacket office. Though 
such a request struck me as decidedly cool in view of his own recent dis- 
courtesies to me there alike as a publisher and as a stockholder in the 
Yellow Jacket mine, and though it seemed to me more like a summons 
than the courteous request by one gentleman to another for a favor, hoping 
that some conference with Sharon looking to the betterment of mining mat- 
ters in Nevada might arise from it, I felt strongly inclined to overlook what 
'possibly was simply an oversight in courtesy. But as then it had only been 
two days since I had been bruised and beaten under a hasty and false 
apprehension of facts, my caution was somewhat aroused. Moreover I re- 
membered sensitively his contemptuousness of manner to me at my last 
interview in his office. I therefore felt it needful, if I went at all, to go 
accompanied by a friend whom he would not dare to treat with incivility, 
and whose presence with me might secure exemption from insult. Accord- 
ingly I asked a neighbor to accompany me. 



PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES TAKEN. 583 



THE TRAP ALMOST DETECTED. 

Although. I was not then aware of this fact, it would seem that previous 
to my request this same neighbor had heard Dr. Zabriskie state publicly in 
a saloon, that Mr. Winters had told him he had decided either to kill or to 
horsewhip me, but had not finally decided on which. My neighbor, there- 
fore, felt unwilling to go down with me until he had first called on Mr. 
Winters alone. He therefore paid him a visit. From that interview he 
assured me that he gathered the impression that he did not believe I would 
have any difficulty with Mr. Winters, and that he (Winters) would call on 
me at four o'clock in my own office. 

MY OWN PRECAUTIONS. 

As Sheriff Cummings was in Gold Hill that afternoon, and as I desired 
to converse with him about the previous assault, I invited him to my office, 
and he came. Although a half hour had passed beyond four o'clock, Mr. 
Winters had not called, and we both of us began preparing to go home. 
Just then, Philip Lynch, Publisher of the Gold Hill News, came in and said, 
blandly and cheerily, as if bringing good news : 

" Hello, John B. Winters wants to see you." 

I replied, " Indeed ! Why he sent me word that he would call on me 
here this afternoon at four o'clock ! " 

"O, well, it don't do to be too ceremonious just now, he's in my office, 
and that will do as well — come on in, Winters wants to consult with you 
alone. He's got something to say to you." 

Though slightly uneasy at this change of programme, yet believing that 
in an editor's house I ought to be safe, and anyhow that I would be within 
hail of the street, I hurriedly, and but partially whispered my dim apprehen- 
sions to Mr. Cummings, and asked him if he would not keep near enough 
to hear my voice in case I should call. He consented to do so while waiting 
for some other parties, and to come in if he heard my voice or thought I had 
need of protection. 

On reaching the editorial part of the News office, which viewed from the 
street is dark, I did not see Mr. Winters, and again my misgivings arose. 
Had I paused long enough to consider the case, I should have invited Sheriff 
Cummings in, but as Lynch went down stairs, he said : " This way, Wie- 
gand — it's best to be private," or some such remark. 

[I do not desire to strain the reader's fancy, hurtfully, and yet it would 
be a favor to me if he would try to fancy this lamb in battle, or the duelling 
ground or at the head of a vigilance committee — M. T. :] 

I followed, and toithout Mr. Cummings, and without arms, which I never 
do or will carry, unless as a soldier in war, or unless I should yet come to 
feel I must fight a duel, or to join and aid in the ranks of a necessary Vigi- 
lance Committee. But by following I made a fatal mistake. Following 



5S4: APPENDIX C. 

was entering a trap, and whatever animal suffers itself to be caught should 
expect the common fate of a caged rat, as I fear events to come will prove. 

Traps commonly are not set for benevolence. 

[His body-guard is shut out ;] 

THE TRAP INSIDE. 

I followed Lynch down stairs. At their foot a door to the left opened 
into a small room. From that room another door opened into yet another 
room, and once entered I found myself inveigled into what many will ever 
henceforth regard as a private subterranean Gold Hill den, admirably adapt- 
ed in proper hands to the purposes of murder, raw or disguised, for from it, 
with both or even one door closed, when too late, I saw that I could not be 
heard by Sheriff Cummings, and from it, BY VIOLENCE AND BY FORCE, 
I was prevented from making a peaceable exit, when I thought I saw tKe 
studious object of this "consultation" was no other than to compass my 
killing, in the presence of Philip Lynch as a witness, as soon as by insult a 
proverbially excitable man should be exasperated to the point of assailing 
Mr. Winters, so that Mr. Lynch, by his conscience and by his well known 
tenderness of heart toward the rich and potent would be compelled to testify 
that he saw Gen. John B. Winters kill Conrad Wiegand in " self-defence." 
But I am going too fast. 

OUR HOST. 

Mr. Lynch was present during the most of the time (say a little short of 
an hour), but three times he left the room. His testimony, therefore, would 
be available only as to the bulk of what transpired. On entering this 
carpeted den I was invited to a seat near one corner of the room. Mr. Lynch 
took a seat near the window. J. B. Winters sat (at first) near the door, and 
began his remarks essentially as follows : 

" I have come here to exact of you a retraction, in black and white, of 
those damnably false charges which you have preferred against me in that 

infamous lying sheet of yours, and you must declare yourself 

their author, that you published them knowing them to be false, and that 
your motives were malicious." 

" Hold, Mr. Winters. Your language is insulting and your demand an 
enormity. I trust I was not invited here either to be insulted or coerced. 
I supposed myself here by invitation of Mr. Lynch, at your request." 

" Nor did I come here to insult you. I have already told you that I am 
here for a very different purpose." 

" Yet your language has been offensive, and even now shows strong ex- 
citement. If insult is repeated I shall either leave the room or call in 
Sheriff Cummings, whom I just left standing and waiting for me outside 
the door." 

" No, you won't, sir. You may just as well understand it at once as not 
Here you are my man, and I'll tell you why ! Months ago you put your 
property out of your hands, boasting that you did so to escape losing it on 
prosecution for libel." 



PRESSING MATTERS. 585 

" It is true that I did convert all my immovable property into personal 
property, such as I could trust safely to others, and chiefly to escape ruin 
through possible libel suits." 

" Very good, sir. Having placed yourself beyond the pale of the law, 
may G&d help your soul if you DON'T make precisely such a retraction as I 

have demanded. I've got you now, and by before you can get out of 

this room you've got to both write and sign precisely the retraction I have 

demanded, and before you go, anyhow — you low-lived lying 

, I'll teach you what personal responsibility is outside of the law ; 

and, by , Sheriff Cummings and all the friends you've got in the world 

besides, can't save you, you , etc. ! No, sir. I'm alone now, and 

Vm. prepared to be shot down just here and now rather than be villified by 
you as I have been, and suffer you to escape me after publishing those 
charges, not only here where I am known and universally respected, but 
where I am not personally known and may be injured." 

I confess this speech, with its terrible and but too plainly implied threat 
of killing me if I did not sign the paper he demanded, terrified me, espe- 
cially as I saw he was working himself up to the highest possible pitch of 
passion, and instinct told me that any reply other than one of seeming con- 
cession to his demands would only be fuel to a raging fire, so I replied : 

" Well, if I've got to sign ," and then I paused some time. Resum- 
ing, I said, " But, Mr. Winters, you are greatly excited. Besides, I see you 
are laboring under a total misapprehension. It is your duty not to inflame 
but to calm yourself. I am prepared to show you, if you will only point out 
the article that you allude to, that you regard as ' charges ' what no calm 
and logical mind has any right to regard as such. Show me the charges, 
and I will try, at all events ; and if it becomes plain that no charges have 
been preferred, then plainly there can be nothing to retract, and no one 
could rightly urge you to demand a retraction. You should beware of mak- 
ing so serious a mistake, for however honest a man may be, every one is 
liable to misapprehend. Besides you assume that 1 am the author of some 
certain article which you have not pointed out. It is hasty to do so." 

He then pointed to some numbered paragraphs in a Tribune article, 
headed " What's the Matter with Yellow Jacket ? " saying " That's what I 
refer to." 

To gain time for general reflection and resolution, I took up the paper 
and looked it over for aw T hile, he remaining silent, and as I hoped, cooling. 
I then resumed, saying, " As I supposed. I do not admit having written 
that article, nor nave you any right to assume so important a point, and 
then base important action upon your assumption. You might deeply 
regret it afterwards. In my published Address to the People, I notified 
the world that no information as to the authorship of any article would be 
given without the consent of the writer. I therefore cannot honorably tell 
you icho wrote that article, nor can you exact it." 

" If you are not the author, then I do demand to know who is ? " 

" I must decline to sav." 



586 APPENDIX C. 

" Then, by , I brand you as its author, and shall treat you accord- 
ingly." 

" Passing that point, the most important misapprehension which I notice 
is, that you regard them as ' charges ' at all, when their context, both at their 
beginning and end, show they are not. These words introduce them : ' Such 
an investigation [just before indicated], we think MIGHT result in showing 
some of the following points' Then follow eleven specifications, and the 
succeeding paragraph shows that the suggested investigation ' might EX- 
ONERATE those who are generally believed guilty.' You see, therefore, 
the context proves they are not preferred as charges, and this you seem to 
have overlooked." 

While making those comments, Mr. Winters frequently interrupted me in 
such a way as to convince me that he was resolved not to consider candidly 
the thoughts contained in my words. He insisted upon it that they were 

charges, and " By ," he would make me take them back as charges, and 

he referred the question to Philip Lynch, to whom I then appealed as a 
literary man, as a logician, and as an editor, calling his attention especially 
to the introductory paragraph just before quoted. 

He replied, " If they are not charges, they certainly are insinuations" 
whereupon Mr. Winters renewed his demands for retraction precisely such 
as he had before named, except that he would allow me to state who did write 
the article if I did not myself, and this time shaking his fist in my face with 
more cursings and epithets. 

When he threatened me with his clenched fist, instinctively I tried to 
rise from my chair, but Winters then forcibly thrust me down, as he did 
every other time (at least seven or eight), when under similar imminent 
danger of bruising by his fist (or for aught I could know worse than that 
after the first stunning blow), which he could easily and safely to himself 
have dealt me so long as he kept me down and stood over me. 

This fact it was, which more than anything else, convinced me that 
by plan and plot I was purposely made powerless in Mr. Winters' hands, 
and that he did not mean to allow me that advantage of being afoot, which 
he possessed. Moreover, I then became convinced, that Philip Lynch (and 
for what reason I wondered) would do absolutely nothing to protect me in 
his own house. I realized then the situation thoroughly. I had found it 
equally vain to protest or argue, and I would make no unmanly appeal for 
pity, still less apologize. Yet my life had been by the plainest possible 
implication threatened. I was a weak man. I was unarmed. I was help- 
lessly down, and Winters was afoot and probably armed. Lynch was the 
,only "witness." The statements demanded, if given and not explained, 
would utterly sink me in my own self-respect, in my family's eyes, and in 
the eyes of the community. On the other hand, should I give the author's 
name how could I ever expect that confidence of the People which I should 
no longer deserve, and how much dearer to me and to my family was my 
life than the life of the real author to his friends. Yet life seemed dear and 
each minute that remained seemed precious if not solemn. I sincerely trust 



STRATEGY AGAINST STRENGTH. 587 

that neither you nor any of your readers, and especially none with families, 
may ever be placed in such seeming direct proximity to death while obliged 
to decide the one question I was compelled to, viz. : What should I do — I, a 
man of family, and not as Mr. Winters is, " alone." 

[The reader is requested not to skip the following. — M. T. :] 

STRATEGY AND MESMERISM. 

To gain time for further reflection, and hoping that by a, seeming acquies- 
cence I might regain my personal liberty, at least till I could give an alarm, 
or take advantage of some momentary inadvertence of Winters, and then 
without a cowardly flight escape, I resolved to write a certain kind of retrac- 
tion, but previously had inwardly decided 

First. — That I would studiously avoid every action which might be con- 
strued into the drawing of a weapon, even by a self-infujiated man, no 
matter what amount of insult might be heaped upon me, for it seemed to 
me that this great excess of compound profanity, foulness and epithet must 
be more than a mere indulgence, and therefore must have some object. 
" Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird." Therefore, as 
before without thought, I thereafter by intent kept my hands away from 
my pockets, and generally in sight and spread upon my knees. 

Second. — I resolved to make no motion with my arms or hands which 
could possibly be construed into aggression. 

Third. — I resolved completely to govern my outward manner and sup- 
press indignation. To do this, I must govern my spirit. To do that, by force 
of imagination I was obliged like actors on the boards to resolve myself into 
an unnatural mental state and see all things through the eyes of an assumed 
character. 

Fourth. — I resolved to try on Winters, silently, and unconsciously to him- 
self a mesmeric power which I possess over certain kinds of people, and 
which at times I have found to work even in the dark over the lower 
animals. 

Does any one smile at these last counts ? God save you from ever being 
obliged to beat in a game of chess, whose stake is your life, you having but 
four poor pawns and pieces and your adversary with his full force unshorn. 
But if you are, provided you have any strength with breadth of will, do not 
despair. Though mesmeric power may not save you, it may help you ; try 
it at all events. In this instance I was conscious of power coining into me, 
and by a law of nature, I know Winters was correspondingly weakened. If I 
could have gained more time I am sure he would not even have struck me 

It takes time both to form such resolutions and to recite them. That time, 
however, I gained while thinking of my retraction, which I first wrote in 
pencil, altering it from time to time till I got it to suit me, my aim being to 
make it look like a concession to demands, while in fact it should tersely 
speak the truth into Mr. Winters' mind. When it was finished, I copied it 
in ink, and if correctly copied from my first draft it should read as follows. 
In copying I do not think I made any material change. 



5SS APPENDIX C. 



COPY. 

To Philip Lynch, Editor of the Gold Hill News : I learn that Gen. John 
B. Winters believes the following (pasted on) clipping from the People's 
Tribune of January to contain distinct charges of mine against him person- 
ally, and that as such he desires me to retract them unqualifiedly. 

In compliance with his request, permit me to say that, although Mr. 
Winters and I see this matter differently, in view of his strong feelings in 
the premises, I hereby declare that I do not know those " charges " (if such 
they are) to be true, and I hope that a critical examination would altogether 
disprove them. CONRAD WIEGAND. 

Gold Hill, January 15, 1870. 

I then read what I had written and handed it to Mr. Lynch, whereupon 
Mr. Winters said : 

" That's not satisfactory, and it won't do ; " and then addressing himself 
to Mr. Lynch, he further said : " How does it strike you ? " 

" Well, I confess I don't see that it retracts anything." 

" Nor do I," said Winters ; " in fact, I regard it as adding insult to injury. 
Mr. Wiegand you've got to do better than that. You are not the man who 
can pull wool over my eyes." 

" That, sir, is the only retraction I can write." 

" No it isn't, sir, and if you so much as say so again you do it at your 

peril, for I'll thrash you to within an inch of your life, and, by , sir, I 

don't pledge myself to spare you even that inch either. I want you to un- 
derstand I have asked you for a very different paper, and that paper you've 
got to sign." 

" Mr. Winters, I assure you that I do not wish to irritate you, but, at the 
same time, it is utterly impossible for me to write any other paper than that 
which I have written. If you are resolved to compel me to sign something, 
Philip Lynch's hand must write at your dictation, and if, when written, I 
can sign it I will do so, but such a document as you say you must have from 
me, I never can sign. I mean what I say." 

" Well, sir, what's to be done must be done quickly, for I've been here 
long enough already. I'll put the thing in another shape (and then pointing 
to the paper)^ don't you know those charges to be false ? " 

" I do not." 

" Do you know them to be true ? " 

" Of my own personal knowledge I do not." 

" Why then did yoa print them ? " 

" Because rightly considered in their connection they are not charges, but 
pertinent and useful suggestions in answer to the queries of a correspondent 
who stated facts which are inexplicable." 

" Don't you know that /know they are false?" 

" If you do, the proper course is simply to deny them and court an inves- 
tigation." 



A GREAT RELIEF EXPERIENCED. 589 

" And do YOU claim the right to make ME come out and deny anything 
you may choose to write and print ? " 

To that question I think I made no reply, and he then further said : 
" Come, now, we've talked about the matter long enough. I want your final 
answer — did you write that article or not ? " 

" I cannot in honor tell you who wrote it." 

" Did you not see it before it was printed ? " 

" Most certainly, sir." 

" And did you deem it a fit thing to publish ? " 

" Most assuredly, sir, or I would never have consented to its appearance. 
Of its authorship I can say nothing whatever, but for its publication I assume 
full, sole and personal responsibility." 

" And do you then retract it or not ? " 

" Mr. Winters, if my refusal to sign such a paper as you have demanded 
must entail upon me all that your language in this room fairly implies, then 
I ask a few minutes for prayer." 

" Prayer ! you, this is not your hour for prayer — your time to 

pray was when you were writing those lying charges. Will you sign 

or not ? " 

" You already have my answer." 

" What ! do you still refuse ?" 

" I do, sir." 

" Take that, then," and to my amazement and inexpressible relief he 
drew only a rawhide instead of what I expected — a bludgeon or pistol. 
With it, as he spoke, he struck at my left ear downwards, as if to tear it off, 
and afterwards on the side of the head. As he moved away to get a better 
chance for a more effective shot, for the first time I gained a chance under 
peril to rise, and I did so pitying him from the very bottom of my soul, to 
think that one so naturally capable of true dignity, power and nobility could, 
by the temptations of this State, and by unfortunate associations and aspira- 
tions, be so deeply debased as to find in such brutality anything which he 
could call satisfaction — but the great hope for us all is in progress and 
growth, and John B. Winters, I trust, will yet be able to comprehend my 
feelings. 

He continued to beat me with all his great force, until absolutely weary, 
exhausted and panting for breath. I still adhered to my purpose of non- 
aggressive defence, and made no other use of my arms than to defend my 
head and face from further disfigurement. The mere pain arising from the 
blows he inflicted upon my person was of course transient, and my clothing 
to some extent deadened its severity, as it now hides all remaining traces. 

When I supposed he was through, taking the butt end of his weapon and 
shaking it in my face, he warned me, if I correctly understood him, of more 
yet to come, and furthermore said, if ever I again dared introduce his name 
to print, in either my own or any other public journal, he would cut off my 
left ear (and I do not think he was jesting) and send me home to my family 
a visibly mutilated man, to be a standing warning to all low-lived puppies 



590 APPENDIX C. 

who seek to blackmail gentlemen and to inj ure their good names. And when 
he did so operate, he informed me that his implement would not be a whip 
but a knife. 

When he had said this, unaccompanied by Mr. Lynch, as I remember it, 
he left the room, for I sat down by Mr. Lynch, exclaiming : " The man is 
mad — he is utterly mad — this step is his ruin — it is a mistake— it would be 
ungenerous in me, despite of all the ill usage I have here received, to expose, 
him, at least until he has had an opportunity to reflect upon the matter. I> 
shall be in no haste," 

"Winters is very mad just now," replied Mr. Lynch, "but when he is 
himself he is one of the finest men I ever met. In fact, he told me the 
reason he did not meet you upstairs was to spare you the humiliation of a 
beating in the sight of others." 

I submit that that unguarded remark of Philip Lynch convicts him of 
having been privy in advance to Mr. Winters' intentions whatever they 
may have been, or at least to his meaning to make an assault upon me, 
but I leave to others to determine how much censure an editor deserves for 
inveigling a weak, non-combatant man, also a publisher, to a pen of his own 
to be horsewhipped, if no worse, for the simple printing of what is verbally 
in the mouth of nine out of ten men, and women too, upon the street. 

While writing this account two theories have occurred to me as possibly 
true respecting this most remarkable assault : 

First — The aim may have been simply to extort from me such admissions 
as in the hands of money and influence would have sent me to the Peniten- 
tiary for libel. This, however, seems unlikely, because any statements elicited 
by fear or force could not be evidence in law or could be so explained as to 
have no force. The statements wanted so badly must have been desired for 
some other purpose. 

Second — The other theory has so dark and wilfully murderous a look 
that I shrink from writing it, yet as in all probability my death at the earli- 
est practicable moment has already been decreed, I feel I should do all I can 
before my hour arrives, at least to show others how to break up that aristo- 
cratic rule and combination which has robbed all Nevada of true freedom, if 
not of manhood itself. Although I do not prefer this hypothesis as a 
"charge," I feel that as an American citizen I still have a right both to think 
and to speak my thoughts even in the land of Sharon and Winters, and as 
much so respecting the theory of a brutal assault (especially when I have 
been its subject) as respecting any other apparent enormity. I give the mat- 
ter simply as a suggestion which may explain to the proper authorities and to 
the people whom they should represent, a well ascertained but notwithstand- 
ing a darkly mysterious fact. The scheme of the assault may have been 

First — To terrify me by making me conscious of my own helplessness 
after making actual though not legal threats against my life. 

Second — To imply that I could save my life only by writing or signing 
certain specific statements which if not subsequently explained would eter- 
nally have branded me as infamous and would have consigned my family to 
shame and want, and to the dreadful compassion and patronage of the rich. 



AN HEROIC RESOLUTION. 591 

Third — To blow 1117 brains out the moment I had signed, thereby pre- 
venting nie f roni making any subsequent explanation sucli as could remove 
the infamy. 

Fourth — Philip Lynch to be compelled to testify that I was killed by 
John B. Winters in self-defence, for the conviction of Winters would bring 
him in as an accomplice. If that was the programme in John B. Winters' 
mind nothing saved my life but my persistent refusal to sign, when that 
refusal seemed clearly to me to be the choice of death. 

The remarkable assertion made to me by Mr. Winters, that pity only 
spared my life on Wednesday evening last, almost compels me to believe 
that at first he could not have intended me to leave that room alive ; and 
why I was allowed to, unless through mesmeric or some other invisible influ- 
ence, I cannot divine. The more I reflect upon this matter, the more probable 
as true does this horrible interpretation become. 

The narration of these things I might have spared both to Mr. Winters 
and to the public had he himself observed silence, but as he has both verb- 
ally spoken and suffered a thoroughly garbled statement of facts to appear 
in the Gold Hill News I feel it due to myself no less than to this community, 
and to the entire independent press of America and Great Britain, to give 
a true account of what even the Gold Hill News has pronounced a disgrace- 
ful affair, and which it deeply regrets because of some alleged telegraphic 
mistake in the account of it. [Who received the erroneous telegrams ?] 

Though he may not deem it prudent to take my life just now, the publi- 
cation of this article I feel sure must compel Gen. Winters (with his peculiar 
views about his right to exemption from criticism by me) to resolve on my 
violent death, though it may take years to compass it. Notwithstanding 1 
bear him no ill will; and if W. C. Ralston and William Sharon, and other 
members of the San Francisco mining and milling Ring feel that he above all 
other men in this State and California is the most fitting man to supervise 
and control Yellow Jacket matters, until I am able to vote more than half 
their stock I presume he will be retained to grace his present post. 

Meantime, I cordially invite all who know of any sort of important villainy 
which only can be cured by exposure (and who would expose it if they felt 
sure they would not be betrayed under bullying threats), to communicatt* 
with the People's Tribune ; for until I am murdered, so long as I can raise 
the means to publish, I propose to continue my efforts at least to revive the 
liberties of the State, to curb oppression, and to benefit man's world and 
God's earth. CONRAD WIEGAND. 

[It does seem a pity that the Sheriff was shut out, since the good sense 
of a general of militia and of a prominent editor failed to teach them 
that the merited castigation of this weak, half-witted child was a thing that 
ought to have been done in the street, where the poor thing could have a 
ichance to run. When a journalist maligns a citizen, or attacks his good 
name on hearsay evidence, he deserves to be thrashed for it, even if he is a 
" non-combatant " weakling ; but a generous adversary would at least allow 
such a lamb the use of his legs at such a time. — M. T.] 



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